Oral Answers to Questions

WORK AND PENSIONS

The Secretary of State was asked—

City Strategies

Graham Allen: What progress is being made on implementing city strategies on welfare to work.

Jim Murphy: Our city strategy is a more flexible and locally delivered approach to welfare reform. The House will be delighted to learn that Nottingham is one of the pathfinders on the city strategy, and that it, along with other areas of the country, is developing delivery plans, which should be submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions by 29 December.

Graham Allen: Nottingham was very pleased to have a city strategy on welfare to work, but a number of issues still need examination. Will my hon. Friend consider the question of the reward levels in cases where city strategies meet Government targets to get people off welfare and into work? He talks about flexibility, so will he consider the future of the 16-hour rule, which is a matter of some concern? If we had such flexibility, we could get a number of other people off welfare and back into work.

Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend speaks with great authority on this and many other issues. He chairs the One Nottingham organisation. I believe that he has shared with the House his view, and the analysis is such, that Nottingham is the sixth richest local authority area in one respect, but the seventh poorest in another. There are enormous challenges still to be overcome in Nottingham and elsewhere.
	On the targets and rewards, of course we are discussing with my hon. Friend and others the exact way to continue to fund success in Nottingham. We will look at the most flexible way to ensure that people who are out of work have the opportunity to train, get back into the labour force and contribute both to their own family and to our economy.

Income Statistics

Greg Clark: What change there has been since 1997 in the number of people recorded in the Department's survey data as having income below 40 per cent. of median income.

John Hutton: As a result of the measures taken by this Government, the rise in severe poverty which occurred under the previous Administration has been halted. Taking 1997-98 as a baseline, there has been no increase in the number of people having below 40 per cent. of median relative income. The number of children in such households has fallen by 100,000. By the internationally recognised measure of poverty, we have lifted 1.9 million individuals, including 700,000 children, out of poverty over the same period.

Greg Clark: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply, but I urge him to consult his own figures, which he has disclosed to me through the Library. They show that despite record spending on social security benefits, a buoyant economy and nine and a half years of new Labour, there are 750,000 more people in severe poverty than there were a decade ago, 600,000 of whom have been put there under this Government. Will the Secretary of State now commit his Government to reducing the number of people caught in severe poverty?

John Hutton: We have reduced the number, as I have said. We are happy to be judged on the basis of the measures that we have taken, but we will certainly not be judged on the basis of the measures that the previous Government took. If the hon. Gentleman was being straight and honest with the House, as he always is, he would have referred to the fact that the figures that he just quoted cover the period from 1993 onwards. I do not think that he is either Toynbee or Churchill; I think this is just twaddle.

Terry Rooney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that dealing with absolute poverty, not relative poverty, is the major priority, and that it does not matter which newspaper column one reads, what really matters is having the political guts and ideology to put policies and resources in place to address this most pressing issue?

John Hutton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I agree with him, although I would add that we must deal with absolute and relative poverty. That is what we are trying to do. The proof of the pudding always comes down to one simple thing: it is all well and good to talk the talk, but one must will the ends as well as the means. For the Conservatives, including the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), who is one of the shadow spokespeople, and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who I understand is now the Tory Trot from Tunbridge Wells—

David Ruffley: It still needs more work.

John Hutton: I think it worked pretty well. What does not make economic or political sense is coming to this place proposing various measures to tackle poverty while writing pamphlets calling for £50 billion-worth of tax cuts.

Bob Spink: Since the Secretary of State seems to accept 40 per cent. of relative median income as a definition of severe poverty, will he accept that the Government should regularly measure the number of children in severe poverty, as so defined, and report on it as part of their strategy for tackling child poverty?

John Hutton: I would prefer to use the internationally recognised figure, which is 60 per cent. of median income. It is true that the Department publishes figures on households having below 40 per cent. of median income, but it is best to stick to the international basis so that we can get a proper comparison.

Karen Buck: The Government have been extremely successful in making progress in tackling both relative and absolute poverty in many areas of the country, but sadly that has not been the case in London. As a consequence, one of the wards in my constituency has a staggering 83 per cent. of children growing up in workless households. In order to make further progress on the national perspective, as well as in London, will my right hon. Friend urgently review the effectiveness of measures such as tax credits, child care delivery and dealing with housing costs?

John Hutton: I agree with my hon. Friend. There is poverty of place, with which we are all familiar, but there is also poverty of race, which is a particular problem in many parts of inner London. We must address those issues, and I assure my hon. Friend, and all my hon. Friends, that we are considering them as a matter of urgency. The city strategy in east London and west London will help to improve delivery and focus on meeting these challenging targets. When we are ready, we will come back to the House with further measures.

David Laws: Today's report from the think-tank, Reform, indicates that the poverty trap in Britain is greater than in any other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nation—a point made a year ago by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn)—and that 2 million people on low incomes face effective tax rates of up to 50 per cent. when they try to go back into employment. Does the Secretary of State accept that criticism of Government policy, and what does he intend to do about it?

John Hutton: We have made it our policy from the beginning to ensure that work pays. Tax credits, the new deal and other measures have allowed us to take nearly 900,000 people off benefits who would otherwise have been looking for work. That has been progress in the right direction. We naturally keep all such matters under review. I know that the Lib Dems are trying to get closer to the Tories—good luck to them on that one—but I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he does not rely too much on the data in that Reform pamphlet, as most of it is economically illiterate, as well.

Frank Field: Would it be right to draw from the Secretary of State's speeches over the past few months that while there is much for Labour Members to be proud of, there is still much to do? As a Government, we have seen the creation of an additional 2 million jobs, and we have spent an additional £60 billion on welfare reform, yet the number of working-age claimants during our stewardship has only fallen from 5.6 million to 5.4 million. May I therefore encourage him to continue the debate that he has begun and to make it central to the renewal of this Government?

John Hutton: I agree with my right hon. Friend in this regard: the work on all these issues will never be done. What is important is to set a course, and I think that we have set the right one. We have matched rights with responsibilities, and we have been prepared to invest more in an active welfare state to help more people who want to work to have the opportunity to do so. If he is asking me whether the work is done, I say clearly not. We have not yet eliminated poverty. We need to redouble our efforts if we are to succeed in doing that, and I hope that he and others will support us when we do.

Benefits (Overpayment)

Tim Boswell: What steps he is taking to reduce the level of debt owing to his Department arising from overpayment of benefits.

James Plaskitt: We began the debt recovery programme in 2001 to bring increased focus on to the management and recovery of debt. Centralised debt centres were in place by 2004. Earlier this year, the new IT system became fully operational. Recovery levels for this financial year are running significantly ahead of previous years.

Tim Boswell: Yes, but with overpayments now running at nearly £1 billion a year, half of them being the result of official error, can the Minister offer the House anything more encouraging than an error taskforce staffed by 12, 10 of whom are part-timers, possibly—I know not—overpaying benefits in the rest of their time? Can he undertake firmly to the House that after a long period of beginning to analyse the problem, we may now at last have action from Ministers on tackling the overhang of debt, which is well over £1 billion, and even more importantly, on tackling the complexities of the system at source to remove the source of the errors?

James Plaskitt: As I have said to the hon. Gentleman, we are already seeing in the current financial year an accelerating rate of debt recovery as a result of the improvements that we have already made. New debt comes on to the books at about £400 million a year. There are two things to do—to reduce the level of debt coming into the system and then to improve the rate of debt recovery—both of which are already being done. To correct the hon. Gentleman on something that he said, about three quarters of the debt that is currently due is down to customer error, not official error.

Julia Goldsworthy: Looking at the issue from the other end of the telescope, what assessment has the Minister's Department made of individuals getting into increased personal debt as a result of delays in processing benefit payments? Increasing numbers of constituents are coming to me in desperation over that problem.

James Plaskitt: Of course, it is important at all times that we process debt as rapidly as possible. Several changes have been made in the way of benefit simplification to help to achieve that. We continually simplify forms to make processing easier, and we do more data sharing between different parts of the Department to ensure that information does not have to be given to us on repeat occasions. All those changes are making it easier for our customers to engage with the benefits system.

Bob Blizzard: Overpayment of housing benefit also affects landlords and tenants. Because of the ongoing inefficiency of Waveney district council, most landlords there feel that they are losing out by having benefit clawed back. They are so fed up that they have started to put up signs in their letting offices that say "No DSS tenants". That means that people who need accommodation in that sector are unable to get it, because of the benefit shambles caused by the local authority's administration.

James Plaskitt: As my hon. Friend knows, housing benefit is administered by about 400 different local authorities, and there is variable performance between them. However, he should also know that we have had investment running for a number of years that has worked with local authorities to improve their processing times. The results from that investment are extremely encouraging. Average processing times have reduced sharply and the authorities with the longest processing times have made the most improvement in reducing them. I reassure my hon. Friend that I keep an eye on all the performances of local authorities, and we are in regular touch with those that still do not perform sufficiently well.

John Bercow: Where overpayment results from official error, not that of the claimant, I put it to the Minister that recovery of the sum overpaid as a matter of great speed and urgency should not be the top priority; rather, the focus should be on justice, equity and consideration for the hapless victim of ministerial or departmental incompetence.

James Plaskitt: I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that it is. If he cares to examine the rules that relate to recovery, he will see that recovery of overpaid benefit is not the top priority in recovery from those who are on any form of benefit. Indeed, housing costs and debts to fuel payment must be recovered before any overpayment of benefit. A rule that we apply throughout the process of recovering debts to the benefits system is that we shall not do so in a way that inflicts hardship on any of our customers.

Heating Allowance

David Anderson: If he will make an additional payment to those entitled to heating allowance to reflect the recent increase in energy prices.

Anne McGuire: The winter fuel payment rose from £20 in winter 1997-98 to £200 in winter 2000-01, and to £300 for those aged 80 or over in winter 2003-04. There are no plans to make an additional payment to those entitled to winter fuel payments to reflect the recent increase in energy prices.

David Anderson: May I ask my hon. Friend whether she is aware that National Energy Action, which is one of the partners that is being used to deliver the warm homes agenda, has said that the Government's figures for fuel poverty levels are based on 2004 levels? NEA's latest estimates, which are based on this year's figures and incomes rises, show that the figure for those facing fuel poverty is near to 2.8 million. May I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to work with NEA to try to get to the truth of where we are now and report back to the House as soon as possible?

Anne McGuire: We will obviously consider the views of the energy agency that my hon. Friend has highlighted, but I should also like to ensure that the House is fully aware that between 1997 and 2005 pensioner income increased by 25 per cent. We spent £2 billion on winter fuel payments in winter 2005-06, which is only part of the agenda to tackle fuel poverty. The Warm Front scheme and similar schemes in the devolved Administrations, to which my hon. Friend alluded, are also part of our campaign to ensure that fuel poverty is eradicated in this country.

Mark Pritchard: I know that the Minister cares deeply about the issue, as I do. What discussions has she had with the Minister for Energy about ensuring that any reductions in wholesale gas prices, as we have seen recently, are passed on to the customer, particularly the elderly? We know that hundreds of elderly people froze to death last year as a result of being scared to turn on their gas fires. Could the Minister have a word with the Minister for Energy to ensure that the savings are passed on?

Anne McGuire: I do not wish to challenge the hon. Gentleman's memory of the previous winter, but our impression was different. His recollection may reflect the situation prior to 1997, when no winter fuel payment was available, and the only thing to which pensioners could look forward was a £10 Christmas bonus and paying 17.5 per cent. on fuel. At the weekend, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated that energy companies also have responsibilities, and while some companies have good schemes to help low-income users, others do not. I know that the Chancellor's ambition is to reduce the cost of energy for consumers as quickly as possible to reflect decreasing energy prices on the wholesale market.

Helen Goodman: As the Minister knows, low-income families with small children also have difficulty paying fuel bills at this time. Will she consider Save the Children's suggestion of introducing one-off winter grants for those families too?

Anne McGuire: I am aware of Save the Children's campaign, and I spoke at our meeting with that organisation only the other evening. I refer my hon. Friend to the strong words of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor about the need for companies, too, to take responsibility and ensure that low-income users have a better deal, as I indicated to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard).

Pensioners (Means Testing)

Philip Hollobone: How many pensioners are (a) eligible for and (b) claiming means-tested benefits in (i) Great Britain and (ii) Northamptonshire; and if he will make a statement.

James Purnell: It is estimated that around half of pensioners living in private households in Great Britain are eligible for means-tested benefits. Of those entitled to guarantee credit, 70 to 81 per cent. are estimated to be claiming, although 43 to 50 per cent. of those entitled to savings credit are estimated to be claiming. Since its introduction, pension credit has lifted 2 million pensioners out of absolute poverty. An estimate for Northamptonshire is not available.

Philip Hollobone: It is disappointing that figures for Northamptonshire are not available, as I suspect that thousands of pensioners in the Kettering constituency are entitled to means-tested benefits but are not claiming them. While congratulating Kettering's citizens advice bureau, welfare rights advisory service and Age Concern for doing all that they can to encourage pensioners to claim, what specific steps are the Government taking to ensure that more pensioners claim the tax credits and other benefits to which they are entitled?

James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that, last year, the Pension Service visited more than 1 million people, and is calling 5,000 people every week. Take-up has increased from 74 per cent. to 81 per cent. When we came to power, there were 3 million pensioners in poverty, but now there are fewer than 1 million. That may not be perfect, but it is very good progress, and it would not have happened under his party, which opposed every one of those measures.

Philip Hammond: Control of the growth of means-testing is one of the stated objectives of the Government's pensions reform programme. The Government estimate that means-testing will fall to less than 30 per cent. by 2050 under their proposals. However, the Pensions Policy Institute, a respected independent think tank, estimates that the figure will be closer to 50 per cent? Is it wrong?

James Purnell: We have been working with the institute on the reforms, and will shortly put forward figures that narrow the funnel of doubt, as it is described. We have published information on our website, which everyone can look at, setting out our estimates. We are confident that those are right and that our system is more effective at modelling the impact of the state second pension, and that our reforms will result in less than a third of people being entitled to means-tested benefits compared with 70 per cent. if the current policy continued.

Philip Hammond: We shall see, but even if the Department for Work and Pensions' figures can be substantiated, a third is still a high level of means-testing in the system. Discounting the Liberal Democrats' fantasy proposals, we accept that there is no easy and affordable way of further reducing means-testing in the short term. Bearing in mind the Chancellor's 1994 commitment to eliminating the massive means-testing now imposed on the elderly, will the Minister say whether the Government share our long-term aspiration to see the level of means-testing fall still further, as and when that becomes affordable in future?

James Purnell: It depends entirely on how the hon. Gentleman's party proposes to do that. He is right to say that the Liberal Democrats' policy is a fantasy, because it would put 5p on income tax. According to the 2005 figures, however, about half those receiving means-tested benefits are receiving disability benefits or carers' premiums, which means that they can collect £160 a week in pension credit. I assume that the hon. Gentleman is not saying he would want to take that money from such vulnerable groups.

Tony Baldry: One of the groups who find the situation hardest are pensioners who own their homes and are eligible for council tax benefit. They have not previously been in the benefit system, and are concerned about giving information. The take-up of council tax benefit in that group is comparatively low. What are the Government doing to try to increase take-up of council tax benefit among pensioners on fixed incomes?

James Purnell: That is a very good point. We are transforming the system for claiming council tax benefit and, indeed, housing benefit. People used to have to fill up a 26-page form; now there is a three-page form which can be filled up in minutes. A survey by Age Concern of people who had claimed the benefit showed that 70 per cent. found it easy. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to work with his constituents to ensure that as many as possible claim.

Contact Centres (PAC Report)

David Amess: When he will respond to the Public Accounts Committee report on contact centres, "Department for Work and Pensions: Delivering effective services through contact centres", HC 1034, 2005-06; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Murphy: In line with normal procedures, the Government will respond formally to the Public Accounts Committee report on contact centres in January 2007.

David Amess: In response to the Department's efforts to save £375 million, many local offices are being closed and are being replaced by 62 call centres. As the Minister knows, the Public Accounts Committee has described the call centres as unresponsive, unreliable and frankly not working. Will he please reassure us that efficiency savings are not hitting front-line services, as they appear to be?

Jim Murphy: Since April this year, call centres have received 22 million calls. All but 0.3 per cent. were answered, and only 0.3 per cent. produced the engaged tone. A National Audit Office report showed that 86 per cent. of customers thought their calls had been dealt with in a reasonable time. Of course we can go on finding more ways of improving customer care for benefit recipients and customers, which is why in the last couple of weeks we have announced a freephone number—a single point of contact—for all working-age benefit claimants. I think that that will be welcomed by customers and citizens throughout the country.

Danny Alexander: In responding to the report on call centres, will the Minister pay particular attention to the problems currently affecting crisis loan helplines? Citizens Advice reports that in some parts of the country there are severe delays in the answering of calls, and that some people are having to make calls repeatedly over a number of days before they are answered. Given that people in need of crisis loans are among the most vulnerable in society, will the Minister ensure that steps are taken to ensure that calls are answered promptly and claims are processed as quickly as possible?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point from his temporary position on the Back Benches. It is true that on some occasions performance is unacceptable. For example, two years ago those claiming disability living allowance did not receive the support and customer care to which they were entitled. We have now increased the number of telephone lines to make it easier to help people in the position that the hon. Gentleman describes. If he finds that his constituents are not getting through to helplines despite that increase in capacity, I shall be happy to listen to further representations from him.

Andrew Selous: Many tens of thousands of people are still unable to get through to contact centres. This summer, for example, it took 25 days for a centre to call back and pay jobseeker's allowance to a constituent of mine, causing severe hardship. Given that the Gershon process calls for no reduction in service due to efficiency gains, will the Minister commit the Department to working towards the elimination of blocked calls and ensuring that all calls are returned within a day unless a longer period is requested?

Jim Murphy: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position on the Front Bench, and hope that his future questions will be a little better informed. As I said, since April our telephone lines have received 22 million calls. Of course, if his constituent is one of those who make up the 0.3 per cent. of customers who have received an engaged tone, that is unacceptable. In the public sector, we want continually to find ways to support customer service and responsiveness in the public services. We can learn from some of the innovations in the private sector. We want continually to find ways to provide a first-class service to our public sector customers, regardless of whether they are benefit recipients, benefit customers or anyone else.

Child Support Agency

Peter Bone: What progress has been made on reforms to the Child Support Agency; and if he will make a statement.

John Hutton: In July, and in response to Sir David Henshaw's report, I set out the broad direction of reform to the child support system. We will publish a White Paper with final proposals shortly.

Peter Bone: What will happen to claimants who are owed thousands of pounds by non-paying ex-partners when the CSA is scrapped?

John Hutton: We must make sure that we crack down on people who are not paying up. We all know from examples in our constituencies that, sadly, relationships end but responsibilities must never be allowed to do so. We have invested more: we are investing more right now in the CSA to make sure that we increase the amount of historic debt that is recovered to parents with care. It is important that we do that. But the hon. Gentleman will have to wait a little longer to see our specific proposals, which will be set out in the White Paper shortly.

David Taylor: Looking back on the genesis of the existing CSA, there were three key reasons why it failed so abysmally: the inadequate number of staff; the focus on driving down benefit costs as a central objective; and an appallingly designed computer system, which was slow and unstable. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that the CSA's successor will focus on driving up income in the families concerned, that it will provide adequate numbers of people in the new CSA to manage the whole process, and that it will go nowhere near—not with a bargepole—the existing computer supplier?

John Hutton: We need to learn the lessons from previous attempts to get this right. We will not do our constituents or the country any favours unless we are prepared to be open and frank about where things have gone wrong. I think that we have done that, and that David Henshaw's report gives us a proper blueprint on which we can plan for a much more successful system of child support in the future. We must make tackling child poverty its No. 1 objective; we have made that clear already. In relation to the point of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), who asked me to reveal to the House the contents of the White Paper ahead of its publication, let me reassure him and his hon. Friends that we will propose a series of much stronger and tougher enforcement powers; but I am sure that the House will understand why I cannot go into the details of that today.

Michael Weir: As agreements will be an important part of the new system, will the Secretary of State at least tell us whether he has had discussions with the Scottish Executive as to how they will work in the Scottish legal system, and in particular whether there will be provisions for implementation of these agreements and for variation on change of circumstance?

John Hutton: Yes, we have had full and proper consultations with the Scottish Executive.

Maria Miller: Over £1 million of the money that the CSA has failed to collect is owed not to the Government but directly to thousands of parents, who have suffered extreme financial hardship. As a result of that, will the Secretary of State confirm today that he will continue to pursue those payments, and that he will not at some point in the future decide to write off any of that money?

John Hutton: I warmly welcome the hon. Lady to her new Front-Bench responsibilities. I know that it will sound unfair if I say this, but the amount of unclaimed debt is not £1 million; it is £1 billion. We are not prepared to see all of that debt just waved away. We will do everything possible to recover as much of that money as we reasonably can, to make sure that families—the parents who are looking after the children—benefit from that maintenance.

Alistair Carmichael: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that a constituent of mine in Shetland calculates that it will take 15 years for the child maintenance arrears for her child to be paid, which means that her child will be 27 before all the arrears are paid? Will he ensure that the people who are in that situation will not be the victims of a mass write-off of debt? That is the real concern that she brings to me.

John Hutton: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not know the details of that case, and rather than repeat the answer that I gave the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), I would prefer to leave the matter there. There is a very significant amount of debt in the system that we have got to clear up as quickly as we can and, as I said, we will do whatever we can to recover as much of it as possible.

David Evennett: I welcome the plan in the Queen's Speech to introduce a child support Bill. One problem with current system and the existing agency has been a lack of robustness in the assessment process. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the new Bill takes that point on board and improves the assessment phase?

John Hutton: Yes, we certainly will. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until the White Paper, but we will set out in it some pretty radical, long overdue reforms of the assessment and collection process.

Jo Swinson: Is the Secretary of State aware of the problem of absent parents who own a business avoiding maintenance payments by paying themselves small salaries and using the business account to pay living expenses and give their partner a salary? Does he think that the current provisions on variations in, and diversion of, income are working well to tackle this problem, or do they need reform?

John Hutton: No, they are not working well and they need to be reformed.

George Young: Can the Secretary of State give an assurance that one reform will be introduced? Where the parent with care has received no funds whatsoever through the Child Support Agency from the absent parent and the child then moves from one parent to the other, the parent who is owed thousands of pounds cannot set that off against the money that she then has to pay to the absent parent who defaulted. Should it not be possible for a debt to be set off against a future liability in those circumstances?

John Hutton: It should be possible for that to happen. The right hon. Gentleman has raised a very important issue, but I might need to refresh my memory as to what the White Paper says about it. However, he has made a very effective point.

Unemployment (Older People)

Anne Main: What recent representations he has received on help available to unemployed people over the age of 50 years.

Jim Murphy: There are 1 million more over-50s in work than a decade ago. We have received a number of representations on what more can be done, none of which advocates the abolition of the new deal 50-plus, but perhaps we are about to hear the first.

Anne Main: The Government have a stated aim to get more older workers back into work and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has said that we must be more focused on employability skills. If the Government want to demonstrate any joined-up thinking on this issue——I doubt they can——could they tell me exactly what representations his Department have made to the Department for Education and Skills?

Jim Murphy: We have a joint project with the DFES and we are a playing an active role in the consideration of the Leitch review and the skills gap. As the hon. Lady's party will be aware, the Welfare Reform Bill will play an important part in the skills agenda for the over-50s. About half those on incapacity benefit are aged over 50. An enormous amount is being done to support such people in their efforts to get into work. Indeed, in the past year there has been an increase of more than 200,000 in the number of people aged over 50 coming into the labour market.

Anne Begg: Over 50s reported that one of the main barriers to work was the attitude of employers, who saw them as over the hill and not worth employing. Has my hon. Friend detected any change in employers' attitude and an improved work-entry rate since the introduction of age discrimination legislation?

Jim Murphy: A variety of initiatives, including the "Age Positive" and "Be Ready" campaigns, are aimed at changing perceptions of older workers. In advance of the age discrimination legislation, there was a remarkable increase in the number of older workers staying in the labour force or returning to it, so there have been improvements. However, my hon. Friend is right that we have further to go in supporting the ever-increasing number of those aged over 50 who wish to work, in order to give them the chance to get back into the labour market.

Robert Goodwill: Surely the best way to help unemployed people aged over 50 is to help them back into work. Does the Minister have any plans to visit Poland and the Czech Republic to see what lessons can be learned from their education and training systems, which have been so successful in equipping people with the skills necessary to take up jobs available in the UK economy?

Jim Murphy: I have no plans to visit Poland or any other part of the European Union in connection with the issue of over-50s in the workplace. Of course, one important part of our over-50s agenda is the new deal 50-plus, which is supporting such people and giving them the chance to get back into work. It has enabled some 160,000 job entries and job starts, but it was opposed by the Conservatives. I wonder whether they continue to oppose the new deal 50-plus, which, as I say, is an important part of our agenda and is supporting such people in getting back into work.

Brian Jenkins: Although we have made some progress, my hon. Friend will realise how difficult it is to change the culture among employers. Surely we as a Government should do what we can to emphasise the benefits and qualities of the over-50s and the experience that they bring to the work force. How would he feel if he heard an organisation used the term "bed blocker" for experienced employees? Will he give an assurance that the Labour party, our organisation, will never use the term to describe our experienced Members of Parliament?

Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend is right. Some two thirds of the growth in the labour market in the past decade has been among the over-50s. That reinforces the need to support more people, especially those who are inactive and perhaps locked into a culture of benefit dependency through incapacity benefit, half of whom are over the age of 50, and emphasises why we need to continue the roll-out of pathways and seek support across the House—which we have had so far—for the Welfare Reform Bill, so that we can support those people to get back into work.

Michael Connarty: I have a simple question and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give me a simple and positive answer to it. I have been approached by many people over 50 whose skills have become redundant, but they have to languish in unemployment for six months or take a cheap, badly paid job that does not use their potential skills. Will the Government consider introducing a scheme that would reskill people more quickly, so that they are not out of the labour market for such a long time or forced to take low paid, unskilled work?

Jim Murphy: The reason that there is a qualifying period for the new deal 50-plus is that the vast majority of those aged over 50 find work in the first six months. The new deal is aimed at tackling and eradicating long-term unemployment in the 50-plus group and among young folk. However, we continue of course to listen to representations and will pay close attention to the report by Sandy Leitch on the future skills agenda.

Disabled People (Heating Costs)

Greg Mulholland: What provision is made for the extra cost on fuel and heating incurred by seriously disabled people under the age of 60 years during winter.

Anne McGuire: Disability living allowance, together with the disability premiums in the income-related benefits and the disability-related additions in tax credits, already contribute towards the extra costs faced by seriously disabled people. Recipients are free to spend those payments according to their own priorities.

Greg Mulholland: I wish to raise the case of Matthew Pinder, who is 21, seriously disabled and lives in my constituency. His mother often has to keep the heating on for 20 hours a day, which is very costly. Indeed, to pay for that, she has been forced to borrow from relatives. May I ask the Minister why, when it is recognised that those over 60 are especially vulnerable to the cold, it is not recognised that those under 60 with serious disabilities face the same daily struggle and, therefore, should receive the same benefits?

Anne McGuire: I do not want to go into specific details, because it is difficult to assess cases across the Floor of the House at Question Time. However, disability living allowance and the disability premiums that I mentioned do take into account the additional costs and impact of disability on an individual. They take close cognisance of an individual's circumstances. The most severely disabled people receive an additional £7,000 a year in recognition of the extra costs they face. Some 60 per cent. of those who receive the DLA and/or attendance allowance are aged over 60 and automatically receive a winter fuel payment. The DLA is regulated out over a 52-week period to take account of those costs that occur regularly for disabled people, whereas the winter fuel allowance is an annual payment at a particular time of year to assist with the pressure of fuel costs in the winter. The two examples are not parallel.

Pensions

Adam Holloway: If he will make a statement on the plans announced in the Queen's Speech to reform the pension system.

John Hutton: A Bill will be introduced providing for long-term reform of pensions, making the state pension fairer and more generous and beginning the process of establishing a new scheme of personal accounts.

Adam Holloway: While reform of the pension system is badly needed, is it not the case that millions of women remain disadvantaged in terms of pension provision?

John Hutton: They do, and that is why we are bringing forward our reforms.

Age Discrimination Regulations (State Pensions)

Brooks Newmark: What assessment he has made of the impact of the age discrimination regulations on state pensions.

James Purnell: There will be no impact, as the regulations do not affect state pensions.

Brooks Newmark: I would like to thank the Minister for that answer, but I will not. The CBI's deputy director-general, John Cridland, has said:
	"employers now face an impossible challenge to implement the new rules by the end of the month."
	The regulations have already been postponed once because of a lack of timely consultation by the Department for Work and Pensions. Given that the regulations must be in force by 2 December to satisfy EU law, can the Minister tell us why the Government left it so late to put their house in order?

James Purnell: Of course, that is nothing to do with state pensions, which is what the hon. Gentleman's question was about. The CBI also said that it was relieved that the Government had responded to its concerns about the previous set of regulations, which would have been an administrative nightmare. The CBI welcomed the changes that we made, and we worked closely with the CBI in making them.

Child Support Agency

Anne McIntosh: What estimate he has made of the level of outstanding payments of child support; and if he will make a statement.

James Plaskitt: Maintenance payments outstanding have accumulated in the 13-year period since the beginning of the agency in 1993. The total maintenance payments outstanding at 31 March 2006 were £3.495 billion. The current operational improvement plan places increased emphasis on collecting debt by, for example, using private agencies and quadrupling the number of staff involved in enforcement activity.

Anne McIntosh: Can the Minister say when the Secretary of State will follow up on all the actions that he promised in his statement in July, such as a further White Paper and a further consultation, and when does the Minister expect the Bill to be published? He accepts that £3 billion is outstanding; does he find that acceptable?

James Plaskitt: A debt has, of course, been accumulating since the very beginning of the agency. The level of debt is not acceptable, and that is precisely why, under the operational improvement plan, we are increasing the resources spent on chasing down that debt, and why we are quadrupling the number of staff engaged in that activity. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State told the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), the White Paper will appear shortly.

Disabled People (Benefit Services)

Ashok Kumar: What Government support is available through the benefits system to people with disabilities; and if he will make a statement.

Anne McGuire: Depending on their personal circumstances, disabled people have access to the full range of social security benefits, including disability living allowance and attendance allowance. In 2005-06, disability living allowance and attendance allowance provided more than £12.5 billion towards the extra disability-related costs of almost 4.2 million disabled people.

Ashok Kumar: May I raise an issue affecting many of my constituents who are in part-time education? They have been told that they are ineligible for carer's allowance because, when their coursework is taken into account, the number of hours that they spend studying is greater than 21. Will the Minister clarify whether the amount of homework done should be taken into account?

Anne McGuire: It is always difficult, when we lay down criteria for the payment of a benefit, to take into account issues such as those highlighted by my hon. Friend. I have not been asked to consider whether homework hours should be taken into account, but obviously I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to look into the issues that his constituents have raised with him.

Jeremy Hunt: On the way in which the benefits system works for people with disabilities, does the Minister agree that one of the biggest problems is the complexity of the system? Does she have any plans to simplify the process by which disabled people claim benefits?

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman is right to stress that we need to make our benefit application process as friendly as possible to the individual, particularly to those claiming disability living allowance and some other disability-related benefits. We constantly review how we present our application forms and we continue to engage with stakeholders and individuals to ensure that, as well as having the right information at the right point in the process, we act in a way that is sensitive to and properly reflects the individual needs of applicants. I appreciate that there is an issue because the hon. Gentleman and I have discussed it before, so I hope that he and the House accept my reassurance that we are looking into how to simplify the benefits system. The main aim is to get the right benefit to the right person at the right time in a comprehensive and comprehensible way.

Mary Creagh: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a vital role to be played by the voluntary sector, as well as the benefits system, in getting disabled people back to work? Will she join me in congratulating the second chance head injury support unit at Pinderfields hospital? I visited the unit recently and heard the story of a disabled man with a catastrophic head injury who had gone back to work through the permitted work scheme as a chef at the unit. He has progressed to a national vocational qualification in catering at level 2, and is now acting as a learning support mentor for other students with learning disabilities in Leeds. Does my hon. Friend agree that such schemes play a vital part in getting people off benefits and into work?

Anne McGuire: I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the work of that voluntary organisation in her constituency, which reflects the experience of many people across the country, where voluntary organisations work in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and other agencies to deliver tremendously positive outcomes for disabled people. That is why, in our roll-out to pathways, we see a crucial role for the involvement of the voluntary sector.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Back-Bench Legislative Proposals

Simon Hughes: What consideration has been given to improving the chances of proposals for legislation from Back-Bench Members getting time for debate.

Jack Straw: Following the recommendations of the Modernisation Committee, the House recently approved major changes to the legislative process. Some of those changes came into effect from the beginning of the Session and others will come into effect in January, but they did not cover private Members' Bills. The Modernisation Committee looked at aspects of private Members' Bill procedure in a report in 2005 and recommended no changes. It considered but rejected the idea of moving private Members' Bill time to Wednesday evenings, concluding that
	"This would fundamentally change the character of the proceedings, with the intrusion of whipping into time which has so far been at the...disposal of backbenchers".

Simon Hughes: I thank the Leader of the House for his detailed answer on the practicalities and the practice, but may I ask him about the principle? I was surprised to learn that, in each of the nine years since the Government came to power, fewer than five private Members' Bills have gone on to the statute book each year, whereas in the previous nine years the average was 14 a year. Given that the public are keen that MPs can be themselves in this place and put forward their own ideas and not merely pass Government legislation, will he look again at whether we can go back to that system, when Members had much more chance of success in getting their proposals on to the statute book?

Jack Straw: I shall certainly do that, because I want to see as many proposals reaching the statute book as have consensus. Bills should not be delayed or blocked for procedural and non-substantive reasons. I do not know exactly why there is such a disparity; I have certainly been encouraging ministerial colleagues to give a fair wind rather than a difficult wind to proposals for private Members' Bills. I must add that there are a number of private Members' Bills that hit the buffers initially, but whose ideas later find their way into substantive Government legislation.

Douglas Hogg: The Leader of the House knows that one way in which Back-Bench Members can trigger legislation is by way of motions that propose particular courses of action. Will he consider ways of reinstating the process whereby Back Benchers could table substantive motions for debate on the Floor of the House?

Jack Straw: A twin inquiry by the Modernisation Committee is about to be announced into strengthening the role of the Back Bencher and the use of non-legislative time in the House, which includes such motions. I could never quite understand why the House agreed to abandon the old process. That was a Jopling recommendation under the previous Administration. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise, it is much more difficult to reinstate such measures than to prevent them from going in the first place, but I am certainly happy to look at the matter.

David Heath: As with Government legislation, not all private Members' Bills are meritorious. Some do not command widespread support, but some do and an example is the Sustainable Communities Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), which I understand is to be taken forward by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd). Is there any scope for using the new Public Bill Committee structure to provide an initial assessment of a Bill and to make a requisition on the Government for time for its completion, thus making it mainstream business rather than putting it into the ghetto of the Friday morning private Members' slot?

Jack Straw: I accept that that is certainly an idea that needs to be considered, but we could not introduce such a change without very serious study. As I have already explained, when the Modernisation Committee last considered the matter, it pointed to the disadvantages of what the hon. Gentleman describes—I would not—as a Friday morning ghetto, but also noted many advantages. One of those is that, by definition, it is not whipped, whereas if we brought private Members' Bills to an earlier part of the week and made them subject to programme motions, they would then be whipped.

Sitting Hours

Barbara Follett: What recent discussions he has had with colleagues about the sitting hours of the House.

Nigel Griffiths: My right hon. Friend has not had any formal discussions with colleagues on that issue, but he is, as ever, open to representations.

Barbara Follett: Given that the vote to reverse one of the Cook reforms and revert to late sittings on a Tuesday night was made by previous Members of a previous Parliament, would my right hon. Friend please consider giving current Members a vote on the issue?

Nigel Griffiths: My hon. Friend was a member of the Modernisation Committee, which reported before the last election. Its report was voted on at that time and since then, as I have just said, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has received no representations on the matter, but will consider any that are made.

John Bercow: In endorsing the plea from the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), I put it to the Minister that, although the Leader of the House is Chairman of the Modernisation Committee and, in his own way, is without question a very great man indeed, he is in one sense at least something of a reactionary troglodyte in respect of his continuing support for very late hours. I therefore endorse the hon. Lady's plea and ask for a vote sooner rather than later.

Nigel Griffiths: Obviously, if the Modernisation Committee revisited the issue in this Parliament, it would be open to the House to consider its recommendations and vote on them if that were thought desirable. As I say, there has been no indication of any overwhelming support to change things in this Parliament, but the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) will doubtless ensure in his own way that the Government take account of his and others' views.

Accountability (Summer Recess)

Ben Chapman: What assessment he has made of the accountability of Government Departments during the summer adjournment.

Jack Straw: The recent introduction of written questions and written ministerial statements in September appears to have been a success. It represents a significant strengthening of existing arrangements for ensuring the accountability of Departments during the summer recess and provides—contrary to the opinion of the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow)—yet another example of modernisation. The House agreed in principle on 1 November that September written questions should become permanent and I will make proposals to achieve that.

Ben Chapman: Given that there are restrictions in respect of time and number on September questions, yet 730 questions were lodged by 100 Members of Parliament, does it not suggest that it was a considerably useful exercise? Will the Leader of the House consider extending the process to other recesses as well? Since Ministers continue to be Ministers and Departments continue to function during recesses, what interest is served by our not doing so?

Jack Straw: I will consider any suggestion that is put to me and I will certainly look at whether we could extend the period for answering questions in September, but there is less scope for doing this in the Christmas and Easter recesses, which are pretty short and a large part of which are taken up by public holidays. I also point out to the House that the number of written questions has risen astonishingly over the past 10 years. Taking three Sessions of equal length—the first Session of each Parliament—there were tabled in the 1997-98 Session, 53,000 written questions; in the 2001-02 Session, 73,000; and in the 2005-06 Session, 95,000. That is about an 80 per cent. increase, and when Members on both sides of the House understandably complain about any delay in answering questions they must bear it in mind that there is a limited resource for both answering those questions and clearing them.

Shailesh Vara: Although there is a general welcome for the tabling of written questions during the summer recess, there is concern that the quality of the replies given is somewhat lacking. What is the Leader of the House doing to assure the House that we will get proper, full answers at the first time of asking, so that Members are not forced to ask lots of supplementary questions?

Jack Straw: I welcome the hon. Gentleman on his first outing on the Front Bench.
	Ministers make every effort to ensure that questions are answered on time and accurately. I shall continue to make myself unpopular with my ministerial colleagues whenever matters are raised by Members on either side of the House about lapses, but I repeat that the number of questions being asked of Ministers has shot up. For example, three Members have asked 1,100 questions of a single Department—the Home Office—between them in quite a short space of time. A shadow spokesman recently tabled 140 questions in a single day. That is currently their right, but I say to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), the shadow Secretary of State for Health, that this is not a matter of sport. The House must have a sense of proportion if the system of asking written ministerial questions is to continue sensibly.

Alexander Litvinenko

David Davis: (Urgent Question) To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the death of Alexander Litvinenko and to explain what action the Government are taking as a result.

John Reid: This statement provides a factual account of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Litvinenko on 23 November 2006. There is, as the House will know, an ongoing police investigation, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that, for obvious reasons, I am limited in what I can say to ensure the integrity of any judicial process. My right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Health and I have co-ordinated the Government's response on this incident.
	In the late afternoon of Thursday 23 November, the police confirmed with the Health Protection Agency that a significant quantity of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 had been found in Mr. Litvinenko's urine. The material was identified following extensive tests by forensic toxicologists. In response to this finding, the police liaised closely with experts to search for any residual radioactive material at a number of locations in London.
	The police have now confirmed that traces of polonium-210 have been found at certain locations, including the Itsu sushi restaurant at 167 Piccadilly, in some areas of the Millennium hotel, Grosvenor square and at Mr. Litvinenko's home in Muswell Hill, London. Tests are continuing at a number of locations. The police are continuing an extensive examination of CCTV footage to trace possible witnesses, to examine Mr. Litvinenko's movements at relevant times, including when he first became ill and to identify people whom he may have met.
	Following the confirmation of the presence of polonium-210, the Health Protection Agency investigated clinical areas at Barnet hospital and University College hospital. One area in the intensive care unit remains closed at University College hospital. All other areas at these hospitals are functioning as normal on the advice of the Health Protection Agency.
	The Health Protection Agency has requested that anyone who was in the Itsu restaurant, Piccadilly, or who was in the Millennium hotel on 1 November to contact NHS Direct, where further advice is available. In addition, the chief medical officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, issued advice to GPs and hospitals on the risks and clinical implications of exposure to polonium-210.
	NHS Direct has so far received approximately 500 calls relating to this incident. A small number of people have been invited to take follow-up tests as a precaution. I emphasise that the Health Protection Agency has made clear the very precautionary nature of this invitation.
	The Itsu restaurant remains closed and the Government Decontamination Service is in discussions with the owners about the clean-up process. A bar and various locations at the Millennium hotel are currently closed to the public. Ongoing work is taking place at the hotel and at Mr Litvinenko's residence.
	The coroner will decide whether a post mortem will take place following advice from the Health Protection Agency. Mr Litvinenko's body is currently at a London mortuary.
	The Russian ambassador was called to the Foreign Office on 24 November. He was asked to convey to the Russian authorities our expectation that they should be ready to offer all necessary co-operation to the investigation as it proceeds.

David Davis: I thank the Home Secretary for that statement. I quite appreciate the limitations on what he can say.
	As the Home Secretary has said, the death of Mr. Alexander Litvinenko occurred in suspicious circumstances. I assume that is why Cobra was convened last week or over the weekend. There are grounds to suspect that this was a particularly cruel, protracted and unpleasant assassination, and Mr. Litvinenko, his family and his associates all believe that he was the victim of a Russian secret service assassination attempt. It is far too soon to know the truth of that, but I would not in any event expect the Home Secretary to comment on that. However, what appears to be known, as I think the Home Secretary has confirmed, is that Mr. Litvinenko was poisoned by a dose of polonium-210, a synthetic radioactive isotope. That raises a number of issues about how such material is obtained as it is made by a sophisticated technique normally available only to Governments, about the technical sophistication involved in transporting and delivering the material undetected and, in particular, about the knowledge required to calculate the dose sufficient to kill but low enough to make detection difficult, as it was in this case.
	That, in turn, means that it is incredibly important to resolve the question whether the Russian state was involved. If it was—given that a British citizen who had been given asylum and was therefore under British Government protection may have been murdered on British soil—that has enormous implications for the relationship between the United Kingdom and Russia and implications, too, for other émigrés in the United Kingdom who are opponents of the Russian Government. If the Russian state was not involved, that raises the almost equally disturbing prospect that such sophisticated capabilities are available to criminals in the United Kingdom and possibly therefore to other groups.
	The House will understand that, for reasons of law, diplomacy and, indeed, other proprieties, there are limits on what the Home Secretary can say. He has already told the House that the Government have sought the co-operation of the Russian Government in pursuing these inquiries. Will he tell us the extent of that? Will that allow state employees with diplomatic immunity to be interviewed? Will it allow access to Russian citizens who may have entered or left the United Kingdom recently? Will it allow the UK police to have the right to interview other Russian citizens such as the associates of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was murdered recently and who appears to have been an associate of Mr. Litvinenko? Have the Russian Government undertaken to co-operate in all such inquiries?
	It has also been widely reported that traces of radioactivity have been found in three or more separate locations around London. I could not quite keep count as the Home Secretary was speaking; it think it is more than three. That is clearly a matter of concern to ordinary members of the public who may have visited one of those locations. Will he confirm what I understood him to be saying—that the three who have so far been kept in because they are showing symptoms are only possible and not likely contaminees? Will he also tell the House what action has been taken to protect the safety of the public further and, in particular, when in this process the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response at Porton Down was involved?

John Reid: Let me go through the questions in the order that the right hon. Gentleman raised them. First, I urge caution on everyone not to get ahead of ourselves or, in particular, the police investigation. Cobra was not called because there was a suspicious death. The police's original position, when Cobra was first called, was not a suspicious death, but an unexplained death. I put that on the record as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently concerning, not least from the point of view of public health, to bring together the cross-governmental agency that deals with these issues.
	Secondly, I caution everyone against assuming that the police have yet said even as much as that they believe that Mr. Litvinenko was killed. The police have been very careful in the words that they have used. They have said that they are dealing with a suspicious death and that is the basis on which they are making their investigations, but they have not ruled in or ruled out anything, and therefore it would be premature to go ahead and speculate on any particular lines of investigation, including those that may become necessary, with anyone outside the country. As far as the preliminary contacts with the Russian Government are concerned, as I explained, we have made it plain to them that, if it were required, we would expect them to give us all possible assistance. As far as I am aware, they have indicated that that would be the case.
	On the premises that the right hon. Gentleman asked about, in several areas of the Millennium hotel, in the restaurant itself, in Mr. Litvinenko's home residence and in several other premises, we have found some indications, to a greater or lesser extent, of radiation. I should explain to the House that the nature of this radiation is such that it does not travel over long distances—a few centimetres at most—and therefore there is no need for public alarm over the fact that radiation may have been found, since there is such a short distance encompassed in its effect distance, as it were.
	A small number of people out of the 500 or so who have contacted NHS Direct through the appeal from the Health Protection Agency have described symptoms that have merited further investigation by tests. Obviously that figure can change from time to time as people phone in and indicate their own position or ask questions. As of this morning, the number was very small—less than five. If there were any significant increase in that number, I, or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, would immediately bring it to the attention of the House in some form of written statement.
	The Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response is part of the HPA and I think—I stand open to correction—that it would have been involved from as early as last Thursday, or thereabouts. Again, if there is anything to indicate that that is not the precise time it was involved, I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman.

David Winnick: Although the Russian authorities may be completely innocent of this crime, does the Home Secretary accept that there is bound to be suspicion simply because a number of leading Russian critics have been murdered in recent times and therefore, inevitably, the finger is pointing at the Russian authorities, whether that is justified or otherwise?

John Reid: My hon. Friend gives us his views and describes the situation as he sees it. It is my job not to deal with suspicions or the pointing of fingers, but to represent to the House the investigation and the conclusions that the police have reached on the basis of the evidence as they see it. People will have their own views on the nature of the Russian Government, or any other Government for that matter, but I have to tell the House what the police tell me. They tell me that they regard this as a suspicious death. They also say, very emphatically, that they have not come to any conclusions on how the death occurred and that they have not ruled anything in, or anything out. It would thus be unwise of me to go beyond that and start pointing fingers or raising suspicions.

Nicholas Clegg: I thank the Home Secretary for his response to the urgent question. It has been chilling and grotesque to see this man degenerate before our eyes in the midst of all these conspiracy theories, allegations and counter-allegations.
	What estimate has the Home Secretary made of the number of other Russian nationals who are permanently or temporarily resident in this country and might fall under the same category as Mr. Litvinenko: those who have worked for the Russian security services in the past, or those who are outspoken critics of the present Russian Government? What contact has been made with them about the precautionary measures that they might wish to take?
	I am not suggesting in any way that the FSB—the Russian security services—is involved in this case. However, it was reported over the weekend that under Russian law, the FSB has the legal power to pursue enemies of the Russian state abroad—beyond Russia. What contact has been made with the FSB about the interpretation of such a power? While it might enjoy extra-territorial powers under Russian law, such a thing would be unacceptable on British soil.

John Reid: However the hon. Gentleman "caveats" his second point, the implications of what he says are clear. I thank him for the invite to follow him down that path, but I will not, precisely for the reasons that I gave earlier.
	The hon. Gentleman asks about the number of Russian nationals in this country ranging from those who disagree with their Government's policy right through to those who have an implacable opposition to it. I do not think that a precise figure can be placed on that. If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether we can give a 100 per cent. guarantee of anyone's personal safety, of course we cannot do so. However, if anyone is in possession of any information that leads them to believe that a crime is about to be committed or is likely to be committed, or fears for their safety on rational grounds, I would urge them to get in touch with the authorities.

Andrew MacKinlay: It might sound old-fashioned, but some Members of Parliament have an open mind about this matter and hope that the Secretary of State's counsel about not rushing to judgment will prevail. I do not think that this is a matter for levity because people pointing a finger at the Government of the Russian Federation when there is no basis so to do are clearly doing harm to our international relations and interests.
	After the collapse of the apartheid regime, an awful lot of nuclear material went missing. Is the Secretary of State confident that sufficient work has been done in London and by our security and intelligence authorities to trace the missing material, which may well be on the world market of terrorists and gangsters?

John Reid: Of course, we are trying to do that to the greatest extent possible, not only as a national Government, but through international co-operation with our partners. Domestically, of course, we try to do that as well. All premises in the United Kingdom that use polonium-210 are strictly regulated by the Environment Agency. Some 130 premises might use that. That regulatory role includes protective security measures at the premises. The Environment Agency works in partnership with the police and the security services, who provide expert advice on security measures.
	It is never possible to identify every potential loophole in any human organisation, but the House will want to know that there has been no recent report of the loss or theft of a polonium-210 source in England or Wales.

Michael Ancram: Is the Home Secretary aware of polonium-210 being used, either at home or elsewhere, by ingestion to cause death, let alone being used as a weapon of assassination? If he is aware of any such incidences, will he make the House aware of the details?

John Reid: As of today, I am not aware of any occasion on which the substance has been so used, certainly in this country. Even looking for papers on polonium-210 was not, in the first instance, an easy job. There did not appear to be a proliferation of academic papers on the subject. I am not aware of the substance having been used for any purposes in the manner indicated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. However, I stress that we are not yet even at the stage where the police are telling me that there is definitely a third party involved, so in answering the question I do not want in any way to imply that the police accept that this suspicious death has been caused by a particular form of action by anyone.

Denis MacShane: The Home Secretary is right to say that we should not point fingers. The sensationalist rush to judgment by some of the newspaper reporting in this case is deplorable, as is the use of British libel laws by powerful oligarchs in exile in London to stop full newspaper reporting of what they are up to. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the Prime Minister is alive to the huge national and parliamentary concern about this matter and will discuss it with Mr. Putin when they meet next week?

John Reid: I have no doubt that a range of issues will be discussed, and to some extent it will depend on developments between now and then. I can confirm, as I said earlier, that the Foreign Secretary has, through her Ministers, been in touch with the Russian Government, and the ambassador was brought in on 24 November. We are of the view, as we would be with any Government with whom we have good relations, that we should be able to expect the maximum co-operation and information from that Government in the event that we need it.

Stewart Hosie: The opening sentence of the  Moscow Times report on the case today says that
	"police combed London over the weekend for traces of the radioactive substance that killed Alexander Litvinenko as conspiracy theories swirled over the dramatic poisoning".
	The Home Secretary will be aware that conspiracy theories have the potential to damage international relations, so will he confirm that until there is a very clear indication of any third-party involvement by an individual, a state or a group, this will be treated as a straightforward, if slightly unusual, policing and health matter?

John Reid: The investigation will be handled by the police with the integrity, circumspection and practical, honest work that we associate with our police service. That is why I have tried to be careful today, in fairness to our police, who are conducting this investigation. It is almost inevitable, given the details of the case, that there will be lurid headlines and much speculation, but I trust that all Members of the House will refrain from encouraging or supporting that. This is a very serious case, and we want the police to be able to conduct it without huge speculation or undue pressure on them.

Andrew Miller: My right hon. Friend has gone a long way to allay public fear about risks to other persons from the radiation that is present. Will he confirm that the best advice that he has had is that risk is limited to ingestion and that, as he said, the very close proximity that one would have to have to the emitter means that, unless it is in the skin for some considerable time, the risks are minimal?

John Reid: Yes, the risk from having been exposed to this substance remains very low indeed. It can only represent a radiation hazard if it is ingested, inhaled or otherwise taken into the body—for instance, through an open wound. As I explained, the range over which the radiation would operate is small; it is in centimetres rather than metres. The risk is very small indeed, but anyone who was in the restaurant and hotel around that particular date and is worried can always call NHS Direct on 0845 4647.

Douglas Hogg: The cautious nature of the Home Secretary's statement will be widely welcomed in this House. It is far too early to form a view as to what has happened and, in particular, it is premature to assume that if this man were murdered, he was murdered at the formal instigation of the Russian state.

John Reid: On the basis of the evidence in the police investigation, it is too premature to assume, first, that we know how Mr. Litvinenko met his death in exact terms and, secondly, who may have been behind it. Through the right hon. and learned Gentleman, may I say to his party's spokesman that I very much appreciate the manner and approach of his question today and the brief discussions we have had before it? The way in which the matter has been conducted in this House is a credit to him.

Michael Clapham: I realise the constraint under which my right hon. Friend is operating in giving information to the House. However, prior to the incident, did the security services flag up to him that London was connected with the black market in radioactive materials?

John Reid: We are all aware, especially in the post-cold war world, that there is a great danger of proliferation on an international scale. Domestically, we are not aware that polonium-210 has been lost or stolen from any of our establishments here, but we are aware that, internationally, all types of very dangerous material are more liable to be found on the black market than in previous decades.

Lynne Featherstone: Mr. Litvinenko was my constituent and a British citizen. What assurances can the Home Secretary give me that Mr. Litvinenko's death will be investigated without fear or favour and that diplomatic sensitivities with Russia will not prevent the full, fair and free findings of that investigation?

John Reid: First, may I, through the hon. Lady, express my condolences to the family of Mr. Litvinenko? I assure her that the police in this country proceed with their business and follow the evidence wherever it goes, irrespective of fear, favour or political implications.

Chris Bryant: The Home Secretary has been obviously right to steer us away from all the lurid speculation in the British media. But there has also been lurid speculation in the Russian Federation and many Russian politicians are now calling for a series of Russian citizens in the UK to be extradited swiftly, despite the fact that the British courts have decided in nearly all of those cases that those concerned would not face a fair trial. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the recent meeting of the Director of Public Prosecutions with his Russian counterpart does not mean that we are going to change our extradition arrangements with the Russian Federation?

John Reid: I hope that my hon. Friend will accept my assurance that these decisions, either in the individual case or in our conduct of general judicial proceedings through the DPP or elsewhere, are conducted without reference to political influences bearing upon them. It is one of the prides of our judicial system that although the judiciary occasionally takes decisions that perhaps challenge Governments and Ministers, we defend its right to make those decisions independently. My hon. Friend is quite right to point that out.

Ben Wallace: Mr. Litvinenko was clearly a man under threat because of his activities. Irrespective of who carried out this murder, if that is what it was, did he at any time make a request to the Home Secretary, the security services or the police for protection? And did the Home Office at any stage inform Mr. Litvinenko that he may be under threat?

John Reid: Not to my knowledge, but these are matters the details of which are covered by investigations, and it is sometimes not helpful to go into them. In terms of the specific question, I repeat—not to my knowledge.

Theresa Villiers: Will the Home Secretary offer as much reassurance as possible to the hard-working staff of Barnet hospital, where the news of possible radiation contamination must obviously have caused considerable anxiety? This happens at a difficult time for that hospital's staff, as they are already threatened with another 60,000 patients going through accident and emergency if the threatened closure of nearby Chase Farm's accident and emergency department goes ahead.

John Reid: Yes, I congratulate the staff at Barnet hospital and, indeed, UCH and the other areas where staff are contributing towards reassuring the public on this. A specialist clinic has been established, as I have mentioned, for patients reporting symptoms that could have been caused by radiation exposure. We should pay tribute to the NHS staff who are dealing with that. I know that the Secretary of State for Health, the Health Protection Agency and many of those employed in our hospitals have been working flat out to cope with the problems over the past few days.

Greg Hands: There is a pressing and urgent issue relating to the thousands of political dissidents and exiles in London in general, whether they are of Russian origin or other. Many of them are British citizens, like Mr. Litvinenko, and some of them are my constituents. Given the fact that Britain rightly and proudly has a reputation for being a safe haven for those escaping from political persecution in exile here, will the Home Secretary urgently agree to review the status and protection of political exiles in our capital city?

John Reid: We constantly review the state of our security and the protection that we can offer to all our citizens, including, obviously, those who are known to be under threat. I cannot guarantee, and nor would the House expect me to guarantee, that anyone is 100 per cent. safe at any given point in time, but we do everything that is possible. As I said earlier, if anyone believes that there is any evidence for them to fear that there is an intention to harm or to kill them, obviously we urge them to come forward as soon as possible. I have no knowledge that there has been any such information given in the recent past.

Points of Order

Mark Pritchard: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you received a notification of a change of name? As you are probably aware, The Scotsman today reported that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) appears to be knighted in the House, but not knighted outside it. I wondered whether you had been informed of this.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is knighted in the House, and that is where it stops as far as I am concerned. I have enough problems inside the House without worrying about what is going on outside it.

Adam Price: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This morning, the Defence Secretary gave a speech at Chatham House on the Government's strategy in Iraq that went far beyond the remarks made by the Foreign Secretary at the Dispatch Box a week ago. Can you, Sir, confirm the long-standing convention that any major announcements of Government policy on a matter as important as Iraq should be made first to Parliament, where they can be properly debated as demanded by 105 Members from all parts of the House who signed the amendment on the Order Paper?

Mr. Speaker: Both the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence made comments on this matter in the House at a time when they could have been challenged on more points of elucidation raised by Opposition Members. I am therefore satisfied that the Secretary of State for Defence acted correctly. Had it been otherwise, I would have agreed to an urgent question on the matter. I have no complaints about the Secretary of State for Defence at this stage.

BILL PRESENTED

Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

Mr. Secretary Hain, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Margaret Beckett, Secretary John Reid, Secretary Des Browne, Paul Goggins and Bridget Prentice, presented a Bill to make provision about justice and security in Northern Ireland. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 10].

Orders of the Day

Debate on the Address
	 — 
	[Sixth Day]

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [15 November],
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
	Most Gracious Sovereign,
	We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament —[Alun Michael.]
	 Question again proposed.

Treasury and Work and Pensions

Mr. Speaker: I wish to inform the House that I have selected for debate the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. Standing Order No. 33 provides that on the last day of the debate on the motion for an address to Her Majesty, the House may also vote on a second amendment selected by the Speaker. I have selected for that purpose the amendment in the name of Sir Menzies Campbell. The vote on that amendment will take place at the end of the debate after the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been disposed of.

George Osborne: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Address, at the end of the Question to add:
	'but humbly regret that the Gracious Speech does not contain measures to address Britain's declining productivity growth since 1997; deplore the absence of measures to give the UK the right skills to take advantage of new global opportunities; further regret the absence of strong and binding measures to tackle climate change and environmental degradation; condemn the absence of measures to ensure real improvements in the public services and greater value for money for taxpayers; and further regret the absence of measures in the Gracious Speech to tackle the pensions crisis to which Government policy has contributed.'.
	Let me begin with a few words on the two Treasury Bills in the Queen's Speech. Tomorrow, we debate the Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses Bill. It is not for this House to decide who owns the London stock exchange, but it is for us to determine who regulates it. I am therefore pleased that, thanks to co-operation between us and our former Conservative colleague, the Financial Secretary, the Bill will pass through all its stages in the House tomorrow.
	We also welcome the Chancellor's admission that we need a Bill to, in the words of the Queen's Speech,
	"enhance confidence in Government statistics."
	That confidence is now non-existent, as a decade of spin and distortion has destroyed the integrity of Government information. We were sceptical when the Chancellor announced that he was going to make statistics independent. We did not believe that the man who taxes by stealth and hides debt off the Government's balance sheet would really give up control. We were right to be sceptical, because the Bill published last week falls far short of what was promised. The Treasury claims to be establishing an independent statistics office, yet Ministers, not that independent office, will decide which statistics it can scrutinise and release. That is like putting the Sopranos in charge of the neighbourhood watch.
	The Audit Commission says that the Treasury's approach will
	"only seek to generate low public trust in statistics and reinforce the perception of political interference in the production and publication of statistics."
	It is not too late for the Government to deliver what they first promised back in 1995, when the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who is now Leader of the House, spoke to the Royal Statistical Society. In a memorable speech, he said that the national statistical service
	"should be placed at arms length to Ministers, on a similar basis to that of the National Audit Office, and should report principally to a powerful Committee of the Commons."
	We agree with the Leader of the House. That is what is needed, that is what the Government promised, and that is what they should deliver in the Bill.
	Talking about failure to deliver, this debate is about the broader performance of the Government. Let me therefore welcome the clunking fist himself. The Prime Minister certainly has a way with an endorsement, does he not? It is amazing how, after all these years, the Chancellor still smiles as his friend gives him a hug and sticks the stiletto in.
	To be fair to the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister's spokesman went round afterwards saying that he was not necessarily backing the Chancellor. He said that "clunking" could have referred to any number of members of the Government, but let us just say that the Chancellor fits the description. Indeed, "clunking fist" is such a brilliant portrayal of the Chancellor's methods and measures that if the Prime Minister does not mind, we shall also be using it, again and again. Our criticism of the clunking fist is not primarily about his character. We leave that to the likes of the Work and Pensions Secretary—or should I say the "soon to be out of work and collecting his pension" Secretary? I am glad that we could arrange the topics for this Queen's Speech debate in such a way that he could be sitting here today, almost next to his friend the Chancellor.
	Our criticism of the Chancellor is that he does not understand how to respond to the big changes shaping the future of our world. In an age of greater choice, he offers more overbearing control; in an age of greater freedom, he gives us more interference; and in an age of flexibility, his rigid belief in bigger government is out of date. In short, in an age that demands a light touch, he offers that clunking fist.
	It was 10 years ago that the Chancellor set himself three central tasks: give Britain a more competitive economy, improve our public services and tackle entrenched poverty. On all three he has failed. Let us start with competitiveness and see what the clunking fist has done. He has hit us with higher tax and spending than Germany, when we should be sharing the proceeds of growth. He has clobbered business with £50 billion of regulation, when we should be liberating our economy to compete. He has smashed our pension system with his tax raid, when, with an ageing population, we should be encouraging people to save. Carbon emissions have risen, but the proportion of green taxes has fallen, when we should be shifting the tax burden from income to pollution.
	Back in his pre-Budget report of 1998, the Chancellor described productivity growth as the
	"fundamental yardstick of economic performance".
	Does he remember saying that? We do. That was the economic measure on which he wanted us to judge him. Productivity growth averaged 2.6 per cent. when he entered the Treasury, but now, as he leaves, it averages just 1.5 per cent. On his own fundamental yardstick, he has fundamentally failed.

David Taylor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he not agree that productivity growth can be a misleading statistic if taken on its own? A growing economy brings the most marginal factors of production into production, whereas a shrinking economy loses them; therefore, it is possible for an economy in recession to have higher average productivity at the margins than a growing economy. Is that not so, and why does the hon. Gentleman include that misleading quality in his amendment?

George Osborne: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that productivity growth has been disappointing. I was merely quoting the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said in 1998 that productivity growth was a
	"fundamental yardstick of economic performance".
	I was pointing out that it had fallen.
	The hon. Gentleman is not the only member of the Labour party who is queuing up to criticise the Chancellor's performance. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) said recently:
	"We have excessive public spending, rising taxes and excessive micro-management."
	Derek Scott, the Prime Minister's former chief economic adviser and great friend of the Chancellor, has said that there has been a
	"furring up of economic arteries"—
	I suppose that he is one Scot who will not be making it into the Chancellor's Cabinet.
	Now the country is living with the consequences. Unemployment is rising in Britain, when it is falling in most of our competitor countries, and real living standards throughout the country are falling. According to figures that the Government sneaked out this month, average earnings are not rising as fast as the current rate of inflation, and this is not a one-off. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said last week that
	"the squeeze on living standards will continue into next year."
	Falling living standards, rising unemployment, excessive micro-management and a less competitive economy—what an epitaph to the Chancellor's decade at the Treasury.

Andrew Miller: rose—

George Osborne: I give way to my colleague from Cheshire.

Andrew Miller: It is Cheshire that I want to ask the hon. Gentleman about. Is he aware that in 1997, when the Conservatives lost office, the percentage of unemployment in patches of my constituency was still in the mid-teens? Is he aware that unemployment in my constituency is now around 2 per cent? Therefore, who is the failure?

George Osborne: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will confirm that unemployment is now rising in Cheshire, as in the rest of the country. We have had the biggest rise in unemployment of any developed country in the world in the last year.
	Let us consider the second great failure of this Chancellorship: public services. The question that haunts the Chancellor is how he could have spent so much and achieved so little. When he was shadow Chancellor, he said that the benchmark for a Government's success is not how much they spend but how well they use their resources. Again, he has failed on his own benchmark. He has doubled the health service budget, but 60 hospitals face cutbacks, 106 community hospitals face closure and 20,000 front-line health jobs face the axe.

Phil Hope: Rubbish.

George Osborne: I note the hon. Gentleman's comment from a sedentary position. Those are figures from the Royal College of Nursing; perhaps he disagrees with them.

Jim Devine: rose—

George Osborne: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
	The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that the effect of higher health spending is less clear in Britain. The mortality rate for cancer and heart disease is declining but, it says, not faster than it was during the 1990s. Perhaps the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine) will confirm that.

Jim Devine: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there are 20,000 redundancies in the health service?

George Osborne: I am quoting the words of Dr. Malone, from the Royal College of Nursing, who says:
	"Twelve months ago, the number of posts that were at risk of being lost was 3,000. Now that figure has ballooned to 20,000."

Several hon. Members: rose—

George Osborne: I will make some progress.
	On education spending, let us listen to the Select Committee on Education and Skills:
	"The Government needs to take great care in making claims about the efficiency of increased investment in education...which the evidence cannot be proved to support."
	But, of course, the Chief Secretary put it best when he said bluntly that
	"a lot of money has been spent but very little seems to have been achieved".
	Why is that? It is because the Chancellor broke his promise that not a penny would be spent unless it was accompanied by reform. He gave the spending Departments everything that they asked for, and got nothing in return. The Granita touch has never deserted him.
	Now the Treasury is engaged in another comprehensive spending review. Let us consider some of the things that we think that the Chancellor should review. Let us review the centrepiece of this year's Budget: what he called his pledge to raise future spending on state schools to today's private school levels. Though cheered to the rafters by the lemmings on the Labour Benches, the Education and Skills Committee now says that the Chancellor's Budget promise is "without substance". The Institute for Fiscal Studies calls it "virtually meaningless". Tackling poor education and skills is perhaps the greatest challenge facing our economy, and his policy is called "virtually meaningless". It has gone from being a pledge to an aspiration, from a rabbit out of the hat on Budget day to a rabbit in the headlights of the spending review.

Kitty Ussher: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, under Conservative policies, educational investment would come before tax cuts? Yes or no?

George Osborne: We have made it absolutely clear that we will properly fund public services, and that economic stability and investment in public services come before tax cuts.
	Let us review another aspect of the Chancellor's comprehensive spending review. I am delighted that the Home Secretary is in his place for this bit, because before he took office, the Chancellor took the extraordinary decision, a whole year before the rest of the spending review was completed, to freeze the Home Office budget in real terms. Only two years ago, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and said in his Budget statement:
	"this would be exactly the wrong time, and contrary to the national interest, to freeze expenditure on the Home Office."—[ Official Report, 17 March 2004; Vol. 419, c. 333.]
	Since then, we have had the London tube bombings, the foreign prisoner debacle and the admission that the Home Office is not fit for purpose. If it was the wrong time then, why is it the right time now? What could the reason possibly be for picking on the Home Secretary? I cannot imagine. He should not be freezing the Home Office budget; he should be freezing the assets of Abu Hamza instead of letting him flick through  Homes and Gardens in his prison cell.
	These piecemeal announcements on spending dribbled out of Budgets and pre-Budget reports—announcements that fall apart on closer examination—are the very opposite of what a comprehensive spending review was supposed to achieve. They are the opposite of what a Conservative Treasury will achieve: real value for money for the taxpayer, and government that grows more slowly than our economy. Of course, a proper comprehensive spending review would also have considered the Government's progress on ending child poverty, which is the third issue that I want to discuss today.
	No one doubts the Chancellor's genuine desire to tackle child poverty, but surely we are entitled to ask why the number of people in severe poverty has risen by three quarters of a million under Labour. The answer is that the Chancellor has relied on just one blunt instrument: tax credits. Of course he refuses to answer any more questions on his tax credits in the House. He has gone 927 days without answering a single question on the subject. It is funny that he is always there to take the applause when he launches these schemes, and scuttles into hiding when they go wrong.

Chris Bryant: rose—

George Osborne: Ah! Here is one of the plotters. Of course I give way to him.

Chris Bryant: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has made great play—as the Tory party is currently doing—of wanting to tackle poverty, particularly child poverty. My constituents would be very interested in that. What possible help would the abolition of inheritance tax be to the poorest families in Britain?

George Osborne: Despite pressure from some of my colleagues, I am not pledging to abolish inheritance tax.
	Let us continue the discussion about tax credits. Where must we turn to get Labour's verdict on them? Not to the current Home Secretary; not to the last Home Secretary, who says he cannot work with people; no, we must turn to the Home Secretary before that, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who has just published his diaries.

John McFall: rose—

George Osborne: I will certainly give way to the Chairman of the Treasury Committee. Has he read this book?

John McFall: I have been following the shadow Chancellor's statements closely. He said that he would not abolish inheritance tax. Is he going to abolish capital gains tax and stamp duty on shares?

George Osborne: I am not going to write my Budget for 2009 in 2006, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, unlike the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I will not be breaking the promises that I make in opposition.
	Let us return to the last Home Secretary but one. His book is not selling as well as he hoped it would, although I bought a copy. It is ranked 1,104th by Amazon. Still, that is 78,949 places higher than another stocking-filler that has just been published, "Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches", by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  [Laughter.]
	Actually, I rather enjoyed this book by the last Home Secretary but one. Here is an interesting diary entry for May 2003.
	"The tax credit system is a shambles—such a shambles that I've had to help out one of my constituents financially... But what else can you do when the tax credit system is such a total mess?"
	There we have it: the flagship of this Government—the single policy most closely associated with the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and a former Home Secretary describes it as a shambles.

Denis MacShane: rose—

George Osborne: I cannot remember whether the right hon. Gentleman has published his diaries, but of course I give way to him.

Denis MacShane: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have his due place in them when they appear.
	Yes, there were problems with the tax credit system. There are still problems with the tax credit system. But it has helped thousands of my poorest constituents to have some kind of decent income, and the hon. Gentleman's sneering, condescending, patronising, offensive dismissal of poverty in this country is a disgrace to the House.

George Osborne: The right hon. Gentleman talks about being patronising!
	Because of the way that they have been designed, the tax credits have undermined incentives to work. That is the finding of last month's devastating joint study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: their report concludes that the indirect effect of the Chancellor's policies might be to increase poverty. Such problems arise when one focuses on the symptoms, and not just the root causes: poor education, family breakdown, mental health issues.
	Unlike the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), other Labour MPs are queuing up to disagree with their Government. The right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), who is not present for some reason, says that poverty has become more entrenched. The current Secretary of State for Education and Skills says that
	"it is actually getting harder for people to escape poverty".
	That is right: after a decade of a Labour Government, a member of the Labour Cabinet admits that it is harder for people to escape poverty. What an epitaph to the life's work of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that is—and what an indictment of his approach.
	The last time we met, the Chancellor completely lost his cool in the Chamber and threw some papers at me. They were covered in handwriting and I have them with me. We sent them to a graphologist—to the principal of the London College of Graphology. I must confess that I was a bit of a sceptic about graphology, but I am impressed by the results. The graphologist says that the writer is not shy—I am sure that Members would agree with that—that the writer shows unreliable and poor judgment and was not in control of their emotions at the time of writing, and that there are signs that the writer can be evasive. It looks like the clunking fist is betrayed by his handwriting.
	There is nothing that the Chancellor has been more evasive about than the coup he attempted against the Prime Minister earlier this autumn. Of course, he denies that; he wants us to believe that it was a complete coincidence that the chief assassin—the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson)—just happened to pop round to his house in Fife a couple of days earlier. He told us that all they did was sit down and watch a "Postman Pat" video together; it must have been the episode in which Pat kills the postmaster.  [Interruption.] But the question that the country is asking is not: why is the Chancellor so disloyal to the Prime Minister? It is: why does he think he would be so different from the Prime Minister?  [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Robertson, you have been delivering a speech for the past half hour. You must be quiet.

George Osborne: The hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) must be careful: he should not misbehave, as the Economic Secretary is looking for a new constituency.
	Why does the Chancellor think that he would be so different from the current Prime Minister? After all, the Chancellor has been in charge of domestic policy for 10 years. The jobs that are being cut in the NHS are his cuts. The failing secondary schools are his failures. The shambolic tax credit system is his shambles. The pensions destroyed were destroyed by him. He is the clunking fist, and the country has had quite enough of the damage that he has done.

Gordon Brown: Is it not remarkable that in the Queen's Speech debate on the economy, when we are supposed to be reviewing the economy over the past year and discussing its likely performance over the future year, the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), cannot begin to acknowledge the one central fact about British economic life: that we have had the longest period of sustained growth in the history of our country? That is something that no other country—not America, not France, not Germany—has had over the past 10 years, and it is something that no Conservative Government have ever been able to deliver. It is something that has not happened in the industrial history of our country. The shadow Chancellor would do better to quote to the House what he says to the business community when he speaks to it, which is that the Labour party has
	"become in the public's mind the party of economic competence."
	As this debate is about the economy, the shadow Chancellor should also acknowledge that not only have we had sustained growth in this country, but we have had the lowest level of inflation for 30 years, the lowest interest rates and mortgage rates—

Philip Davies: They are all going up.

Gordon Brown: The interest rate is 5 per cent. The hon. Gentleman might wish to stand up and tell us what were the interest rates under the last Conservative Government. If I remember rightly, the interest rate averaged 10 per cent. and it was 15 per cent. for more than one year. The average mortgage rates were 11 per cent.

Mark Pritchard: Is it not time that this Chancellor took some responsibility for our failing economy?  [Interruption.] Labour Members can mock, but unemployment in Shropshire has risen in the past 12 months by 36 per cent. Let us go back to 1979, when interest rates were at 22 per cent. under Labour. If we want to go back further, let us return to 1931 under Ramsay MacDonald, when interest rates were also high. When does it stop?

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman talks about Britain's failing economy. During the past year, the shadow Chancellor has said that the outlook for 2006 was gloomy and that the economy was slowing. He said that it had become the weakest in the developed world, that we were struggling to compete, and that we were "faltering". Growth is higher than forecast—0.7 per cent. in the first, second and third quarters—and we will have growth higher than forecast this year. Indeed, while America is having to downgrade its growth estimates, Britain is seeing higher growth. The sooner the Conservative party stops talking down the British economy, which has been growing in a sustained way for the past 10 years, the better it will be for investment in this country.

Michael Fallon: If it is all going so swimmingly well, why is it reported this morning that one in five British companies is now considering relocating outside the United Kingdom because of increasingly uncompetitive taxation and new rafts of legislation?

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman is reading from a survey of 89 companies. Let me tell Conservative Members what has actually happened since 1997. Some 389 companies have relocated their headquarters—national, European or global—to the United Kingdom, 56 have relocated to France, 39 have relocated to Germany and 35 have relocated to the Netherlands. Moreover, of the 389 companies coming to Britain, 30 were from Ireland. If Conservative Members really wanted to talk about the strength of the British economy, they would be saying what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) says when he gives his presentations to the private sector. Does he not talk about "the lure" of Britain, and about Britain's being a low-tax economy, when he gives his private presentations?

John Redwood: That was true, but it is no longer. Does the Chancellor accept that Ireland is now growing three times as fast because it is tax-competitive and Britain is no longer?

Gordon Brown: I would not give much for the right hon. Gentleman's advice. At a presentation that he gave only a few months ago, he asked:
	"What are the most attractive locations today?"
	and spoke of
	"The lure of the USA...of China...of India...of the UK."
	On the question of why companies want to come to Britain, he said:
	"Places like Ireland, the UK, the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore attract because their tax rates for business are low."
	Let us be clear. The right hon. Member for Wokingham is chairman of the Conservative party's economic competitiveness working party. He produces recommendations, including considering the use of vouchers—this is the answer to the shadow Chancellor's point about the recommendation on poverty—in place of rights to public services.  [Interruption.] I am happy to read it out to the right hon. Gentleman during the debate. Conservative Members will be very interested to learn that, at a time when we are discussing what has happened to Farepak, he has recommended that regulation for low-cost savings products should be removed if people do not want to sign up to such regulation.

John Redwood: rose—

Gordon Brown: I am happy to give way if the right hon. Gentleman wants to clarify that point.

John Redwood: The Chancellor is living in a fictitious world—he should wait to see the proper report. Of course, if people want good quality regulation, it should be there on their behalf, but what we do not want is the massive over-regulation that is now driving business out of this country.

Gordon Brown: This is a very important point, because it is about the future of the Conservative party. Did the right hon. Gentleman say, in his economic competitiveness group, that he wanted to produce plans for vouchers for public services, which the shadow Chancellor says they will not do? Did the right hon. Gentleman also say that if people wanted to sign up to no-regulation products in the financial services industry, they should be free to do so? The answer is yes. At the same time that Conservative, Liberal, nationalist and Labour Members are complaining about what has happened to Farepak, the right hon. Gentleman would remove the possibility of regulation.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Gordon Brown: Well, this is very interesting. Which part of the Conservative party shall I give way to? We have the No Turning Back group, the Cornerstone group, the Bow group and the Tory Reform group and they all have tax proposals.

Julian Brazier: The Chancellor mentioned savings products, but can he tell the House why the savings ratio has halved since he took office?

Gordon Brown: The savings ratio in the US is negative, but the economy continues to grow —[ Interruption. ] The hon. Gentleman has to explain to us how removing protection from savings products would in any way liberate low-income users in our country. I was right—the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Cornerstone group of the Conservative party, which wants £40 billion-worth of tax cuts. It says that that is only 4 per cent. of GDP and we should not worry about it. It is only the cost of every school in the country, but that is the policy of the Cornerstone group of the Conservative party.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Gordon Brown: Should I take the Cornerstone group, the No Turning Back group or perhaps the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey )—[ Interruption. ]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am having some difficulty in hearing the Chancellor and the debate. Perhaps the House could quieten down a little.

Edward Vaizey: Given the Chancellor's interest in the views of Back Benchers, will he confirm whether he supports the call by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) for vouchers in the NHS or the call by the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) for the abolition of inheritance tax?

Gordon Brown: The answer is no, and I have made that absolutely clear. The hon. Gentleman might explain to me why at one and the same time he supports the third fiscal rule, which requires us to cut public expenditure by £16 billion or £17 billion this year and next year, and at the same time calls for more spending on roads, the health service and all round. At some point, the Conservative party will have to make up its mind. Either it is the party—

Several hon. Members: rose—

Gordon Brown: Well, I will give way once more and then I will have to make some progress, because I wish to expose the various positions in the Conservative party. I do not know which one the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) represents, but I will give way to him.

David Gauke: If the Chancellor does not agree with the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) or the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers), does he agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) who has said that in 1997 the Labour Government inherited one of the strongest pension provisions in Europe and now has one of the weakest?

Gordon Brown: The pensions Bill, which I thought had all-party support, will guarantee a rise in line with earnings in the next Parliament and will put the pensions system on a better footing. I expect that during the debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) will explain his views on that Bill. However, I was right—the hon. Gentleman is a member of the No Turning Back group, so he does not want only £40 billion of tax cuts; he wants £50 billion of tax cuts. I have read the group's document. At the same time, however, the hon. Gentleman, who should be grateful that unemployment is down 36 per cent. in his constituency, has called for more health spending. How can he, at one and the same time, support more spending on the health service and a £50 billion cut in taxation?

Philip Davies: rose—

Gordon Brown: I must make progress. The one group of people who do not seem to have a policy on which they are prepared to pronounce are the Front Benchers of the Conservative party. They have been absolutely silent while all the party's different policies have been exposed.
	The main theme of the Queen's Speech is the intention to build on the economic platform that we have created of stability and growth, and to look forward to the central challenges that we must meet as a nation. As a result of the Queen's Speech, we will publish legislation on statistics, further education reform, welfare reform, and pensions—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will talk about that in detail later—and there will be a financial services Bill, too. In addition, today we are publishing our document on long-term challenges facing the British economy. What was remarkable about the shadow Chancellor's speech was that none of those long-term challenges was addressed.
	We will face the global terrorist challenge by enhancing security. We have doubled the security budget from £1 billion to £2 billion.  [Interruption.] I am happy to give way, if any hon. Member can point out that that is not the case. Let us have no more talk about the Home Office budget. The security budget is doubling, and the Home Office budget is rising this year, next year, and the year after that, because we intend to meet our commitments to security.
	The second challenge is how to meet the demands of global economic restructuring. We must do so by entrenching our stability. That is why the statistics Bill will continue the process that we started with the Bank of England and the competition authorities, and continued with industrial policy—the process of making policy independent of Government. We will out-innovate our competitors if we pursue the science, technology and skills strategy that we are putting forward.
	We must meet the environmental challenge by taking action on climate change, hence the climate change Bill that we will discuss in the House. However, we must balance what we can do nationally and what we can do internationally. I should tell Opposition Members that the environmental challenge will require a degree of European co-operation, and that is no part of their policy at the moment. If we are to meet the challenges of the future, we must respond to rising individual aspirations and to the yearning in our communities for greater cohesion.
	I will not give way. We take seriously the security needs of Britain and the issue of how to meet those needs through public expenditure. I can confirm not only that we have doubled the security budget, but that we are considering a single security budget. I can also confirm that we have spent £5 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan. To continue the support of our armed forces, I am making available extra money for operational needs. We are setting aside £24 million for the "Better Basra" project, and at least a further £100 million in reconstruction. We will expedite approval of any other desires that the Army has for necessary equipment if a similar operationally urgent need arises. I have said that there should be no hiding place for those who perpetrate terrorism, and there should be no hiding place for those who finance it, either.
	I turn to the challenges of global economic restructuring. The Queen's Speech legislation on further education reform, welfare reform, and statistics, as well as the document that we published today setting out the long-term challenges, are designed to make us better equipped, as a nation, for the challenges ahead. Asia is now producing more than Europe, and China alone produces half our computers, clothes and digital cameras. Even more challenging for the future is the prediction that China and India are likely to be responsible for half of the world's growth in the next 10 years. There has been a 400 per cent. increase in the number of unskilled workers in the industrialised economy. China and India charge wage rates that are only 5 per cent. of those of the United Kingdom, and they are therefore making large numbers of the world's unskilled workers unemployable or redundant. That is a major social, as well as economic, challenge, and that is why we have set up a number of reviews, led by prominent business men and women in this country.
	Our challenge is to out-innovate our competitors, and to consider how to build on our commitment to science. That commitment has led us to double the science budget. The Gowers report will consider how Britain can become the leading intellectual property centre of the world. The Cooksey report will consider how we can bring private and public sectors together, so that we can take the lead in medical technology. In transport, where we are still paying the price for decades of under-investment under the Conservatives, Rod Eddington, former chief executive of British Airways, will advise on future priorities. Kate Barker, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee will produce her report on planning.
	I turn to the skills needs of the economy. Allied to further education— [Interruption.] The Conservatives do not like talking about serious issues, such as the future of jobs and skills in our economy. We have made more progress towards full employment than any Government in recent years.

Peter Bone: Can the Chancellor explain why there are more unemployed people in my constituency now than in October 1997?

Gordon Brown: I tried to do my research before the debate and the figures that I have say that unemployment has fallen from 1,856 to 1,500—[Hon. Members: "Where?"] In Wellingborough. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should look at the unemployment figures for his own constituency. He is of course a member of the No Turning Back group—[Hon. Members: "They're everywhere."] They are certainly everywhere on the Conservative Benches, and they want to cut taxation at a cost of £50 billion. The hon. Gentleman must benefit from the new deal, which is creating jobs in his constituency, yet he wants to abolish it. He must benefit from the additional 85,000 nurses and 30,000 doctors in the national health service. If the third fiscal rule were applied, we would be cutting that public expenditure. If the figures that I gave the hon. Gentleman are right—obviously I shall correct them if they are wrong—and unemployment has fallen from 1,856 to 1,500 since we came to power and is down 19 per cent., perhaps he might apologise to me.

Peter Bone: Will the Chancellor give way?

Gordon Brown: I am happy to give way if the hon. Gentleman wants to give me the right figures.

Peter Bone: It is simple; the figures are the Government's. At the end of October, more people were unemployed in Wellingborough than at the end of October 1997—those are Government figures.

Gordon Brown: It is interesting that I can give the hon. Gentleman figures for his constituency but he cannot give them to me.
	When the Welfare Reform Bill and the Further Education and Training Bill go through the House of Commons, we shall also be considering the Leitch report on skills. Since 1997, we have trebled apprenticeships; through educational maintenance allowances, we have increased the number of people staying on at school to 300,000; and the national employer training programme is forecast to reach 350,000 employees. In addition, the Further Education and Training Bill will deliver accountability of further education colleges. It will borrow from the community colleges model in America and will mean that there is greater individual choice. At the same time, more money will be spent on learning and skills as a result of the record investment in further education colleges— [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) has new figures on unemployment, I shall be happy to hear them.
	The new deal has helped 3.6 million people to find jobs. It has helped 1.8 million people into work and 980,000 people— [Interruption.] What is the point of abolishing the new deal when it helps people to get jobs?
	I turn now to the issues at the centre of any economic debate: tax and spending as a whole. In 1992, when I became shadow Chancellor, we decided that we must have discipline in our party about public spending commitments. We decided that no shadow Minister should make public spending commitments that were not approved, and that we would freeze public spending for the first two years of a Labour Government to achieve the stability necessary for the economy.
	The Conservatives have adopted a fiscal rule that suggests that they would cut public spending by £17 billion this year and by £16 billion next year. If it were across the economic cycle, the figure would be even higher and nearer to the No Turning Back group's £32 billion or £31 billion. I would like to read out some of the commitments made by the Conservatives on public spending.
	The Conservative shadow Chancellor says that he wants stability and to keep spending low, yet there are promises of more money for the Home Office, more money for the police who should have higher basic salaries, more money for border police, more money for 24-hour security at ports, more money to invest in drug rehab, more money for what are called "relationship centres", more money for roads, for voluntary bodies, for occupational therapists—and those are the commitments made only by the Leader of the Opposition. It sounds awfully like a Liberal party shopping list.
	I have also looked into the Queen's Speech debates and at the discipline that the shadow Chancellor has been able to exercise over his colleagues. We should remember that this is the party whose fiscal rule requires cuts in public expenditure, yet there is more money for the NHS promised by the health spokesman on 22 November, more money promised for the Home Office by the shadow Home Secretary on 23 November, more money from the shadow Transport Secretary on 23 November, more money demanded by the shadow Defence Secretary, the shadow children's Minister, the shadow Energy Minister and the Opposition Whip. There is more money for hauliers and for rail, for example. Clearly, none has any discipline in respect of the commitments made and it is no use the shadow Chancellor press-releasing his commitment to stability if at the same time all his shadow Ministers are announcing that they have to spend more.
	The Conservatives put up a website last week about borrowing and people getting into debt. It said that it might sound "boring", but that people should remember to keep to their "spending budget"—and I suspect that that is what the Conservative party should be doing. The problem is that the Tories want to tell people who doubt their credentials that they are in favour of public services so they will spend more, but then they want to tell the No Turning Back and Cornerstone groups that they are in favour of tax cuts so they will spend less.

Philip Davies: rose—

Gordon Brown: I am not giving way.
	I have also looked at the first report of the Conservative public services policy group. It may have been undisciplined, but it was going to see the light in future. But no—there is more money promised for school federations, more money for expanding schools, more finance for social care, money to review prescription charges, more tax credits for carers, more incentives for insurance for care, the provision of more social housing, more money for community land ownership schemes and more money for housing associations.
	In 1992, we decided as an Opposition that we would not make expensive commitments that we could not afford— [Interruption.] We decided—

Peter Bone: rose—

Gordon Brown: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a few moments.

Peter Atkinson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may help the Chancellor to know that the figures have arrived in the hands of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole). Is it in order for them to be passed from him to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) who is sitting behind the Chancellor and who is a Whip and acting as an unpaid Parliamentary Private Secretary tonight, and then to two other Parliamentary Private Secretaries behind the Chancellor?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Fortunately, I am not responsible for notes passed around the Chamber.

Gordon Brown: rose—

Peter Bone: rose—

Gordon Brown: I am prepared to give way. I hope that these are the figures for 1997.

Peter Bone: I apologise to the Chancellor for not having the figures earlier, but unemployment in Wellingborough in October 1997 was 1,501 and in October 2006 it was 1,535. I believe that that is an increase.

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong, as we came into power in May— [Interruption.]

Several hon. Members: rose—

Gordon Brown: I am sorry, but we got the new deal moving— [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the House would wish the Chancellor to be able to clarify the point.

Gordon Brown: The figure is 1,856, reduced to 1,500. The hon. Member for Wellingborough must know that, in the first few months of a Labour Government, the growth rate of the economy and the employment creation through the new deal were such that we were getting people back to work incredibly quickly.  [ Interruption. ] I am not going to apologise for giving the number of people unemployed in May 1997—1,850.
	I have just listed all the Conservative party's spending commitments, but what about all the tax commitments? One would think that the shadow Chancellor, having at one and the same time allowed spending commitments to grow even though he has the third fiscal rule, would be bearing down heavily on tax commitments, but what about the Forsyth commission, which he says sets the framework for the future? There are £21 billion of tax cuts in the Forsyth report. So there is a range from £21 billion to the Cornerstone group's £40 billion and the No Turning Back group's £50 billion, while the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who is chairman of the economic competitiveness group, suggests sums of even more than £50 billion. How do those figures add up?
	Let me tell the House that I remember exactly what happened. I have the Conservatives' election manifesto from 1992. What did they promise then? They said that they would bring stability. [Hon. Members: "More!"] They said that they would cut taxes; they said that they would raise spending; they said that they would lower spending as a share of national income. They said that all those things could happen at one and the same time. What did they call that in 1992? They called it sharing the proceeds of growth. They said that a dividend would be paid between tax cuts and spending rises.
	The Conservatives are in favour of recycling. What we are seeing is the recycling of the 1992 promises. They talk about stability; they say that there will be tax cuts; they promise spending rises; they say that they will bear down on spending; and it ends up in what happened after 1992. It ends up not in tax cuts, but in 22 tax rises; it ends up not in spending rises, but in massive spending cuts; and it ends up in the shambles of an economic recession, with 15 per cent. interest rates, thousands losing their jobs, mortgage repossessions and negative equity.
	Perhaps the House should be aware that, when the final humiliation came in 1992 —[ Interruption. ] Conservative Members do not believe that it was a humiliation. Well, 15 per cent. interest rates were a humiliation. When the final humiliation came in 1992, who was standing next to Lord Lamont, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer? It was none other than the principal economic adviser, who is now the Leader of the Opposition. The Conservative party cannot face up to the country's challenges. The Conservatives cannot face up to those challenges if they go for tax cuts, spending rises and no discipline. They cannot face up to the big challenges on education and training. They cannot face up to the big challenges on poverty and dealing with public services. They cannot face up to the big challenges on skills and the innovative future that our economy needs. The only party that can face up to the challenges is the Labour party and this Government.
	Hon. Members: More!

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must continue with the debate.

Vincent Cable: I first wish to focus on the second paragraph of the Queen's Speech, which is about economic stability, and then on two of the big long-term issues that have been presaged by Sir Nick Stern's report on climate change and by the Turner report on pensions, both of which have given rise to two important Bills and, indeed, to long-term policy.
	When I made this speech last year, I started by congratulating the Conservative spokesman on having acceded to his new post. I note that he is receiving at least some good advice, because I see that quite a few of my policies and speeches appear in his after a short time lag. Most recently, my 10-point plan on debt reappeared as the Conservatives' six-point plan on debt. I had been puzzled as to what was wrong with the other four points until I worked out that they all related to problems concerning mortgages and repossessions, which may be an area of policy over which the Conservatives wish to draw a veil.
	My main point of difference with the shadow Chancellor at the moment relates to my lack of a sense of humour. I fail to appreciate what is hilarious about the Conservative website describing people who have got into debt as "feckless tossers". I thought perhaps that, with my advancing years, the problem was that I had lost my schoolboy sense of humour. However, having tried the words out on various age cohorts including schoolboys, I realise that they do not see what is funny about them either.
	As far as the Chancellor is concerned, I realise that the boxing metaphor is getting a little bit worn. He may recall in a way that is perhaps not terribly helpful to him that, before Lennox Lewis came along, British heavyweight boxers were notoriously ineffective. Indeed, they eventually earned the nickname of "horizontal heavyweights". That is how they tended to appear on the canvas. However, after an hour of Punch and Judy politics, the Chancellor has shown a certain talent for that. Indeed, beating up Judy is something that he is a master of, but we now need to move on to a slightly more serious level. I apologise if I move into that vein.
	I first wish to focus on the issue of economic stability. The obvious points are stark.

John Redwood: Why do the hon. Gentleman and his party still think that joining the euro would be good for our stability, given the awful experience of the European exchange rate mechanism, which his party and the Chancellor wrongly recommended?

Vincent Cable: Most of us in the House, whatever our party, would agree that it would be foolish to rule out the option for ever, which I think is the right hon. Gentleman's option. I am not sure that that fits with the views of those on the Conservative Front Bench.
	Let me return to the issue of stability. The Chancellor is absolutely right—and this is a sensible place to start—to say that we are in a successful economy and that we should be proud of that. I have never quite understood why the Conservatives have such difficulty saying that and claiming some of the credit, rather than arguing that we are in a constant state of economic collapse. The British economy is in good shape and, as the International Monetary Fund said recently, our rate of growth is somewhat above the G7 average and certainly more stable. The issue is not whether that happens—it clearly is happening—but whether it can be sustained. The question is whether the growth that we have at the moment is sustainable or more similar to the experience that we had in the 1950s, which I grew up with as a teenager, when we also had more than a decade of stable growth, low unemployment and low inflation. However, we were building up imbalances in the economy and they eventually spilled over in the form of balance of payments crises. We cannot have them any more because we have a floating exchange rate.
	None the less, serious imbalances are building up in the British economy and it will be a major challenge for the Chancellor and whoever succeeds him to deal with them. One of them relates to public expenditure, which is growing significantly faster than the British economy. We have no quarrel with the increase in public expenditure that has occurred—or much of it; much of it has been valuable—but there is an issue of sustainability. The other big challenge is that of personal debt.
	On public expenditure, the Chancellor challenged the Conservative spokesman about some of his spending commitments, and he was right to do that. However, the Chancellor is also making major spending commitments that will be difficult to sustain over the difficult periods ahead. Public expenditure will not be able to grow much faster than the British economy over the next period.
	I want to take the Chancellor over some of the spending commitments that the Government are entering into and challenge him to justify them. He started his speech by referring, I think with some pride, to the spending that the Government were undertaking on what he called security. That includes the war in Iraq. We have a different perspective on that, because we regard the £4 billion spent on that war as having been wasted. He may say, "That's water under the bridge. Let's look at the future." Last weekend, the Chancellor committed the Government to spending an extra £100 million on reconstruction. One might say, "Fine. That's good. Whatever our views on the war, surely we are in favour of reconstruction." I am challenging that. I do not know whether the Chancellor is aware, but a few weeks ago, the Iraqi Government committed themselves to the latest big tranche of spending: a total of $40 billion, which is more than £20 billion, in reparation payments. That is Iraqi oil money. It is not being used for reconstruction or to raise standards for people in Iraq; it is being used to pay reparation for damage supposedly incurred in the first Gulf war. Much of it is going to Kuwait, not just for the damage that was inflicted by Saddam Hussein but for continuing penalty payments. Bizarrely, much of it is going to private companies such as Halliburton, Bechtel and even Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are being paid compensation for profits that they lost as a result of the first Gulf war. My question to the Chancellor is: why should the British Exchequer—the British taxpayer—be plugging holes in the Iraqi budget when the Iraqi Government are making those enormous, obscene payments? There is no justification.
	Let me take another heading under the issue of security. The National Audit Office recently produced a compilation of defence estimates: the 20 biggest projects under the Ministry of Defence—20 big projects costing £20 billion. It was subsequently presented by Lord Drayson as a great success story. However, it emerged from the analysis that the projects were collectively £2.6 billion over-budget and cumulatively 36 years behind schedule. Clearly, if there is going to be a tightening of Government spending, some of that stuff will have to be looked at. We have argued, for example, that some of the third tranche of the Eurofighter project, which is estimated to cost £16 billion—although we do not really know, because the figures have been concealed under commercial secrecy—has to be scrapped. The Government are going to have to face up to that too. Sooner rather than later, we want an analysis of where that spending is going.
	To take another set of spending commitments, I have recently been trying to trawl through parliamentary questions about what is happening in relation to Government computer projects. The projects currently in operation that I have had a reply about—about half—have a cumulative overrun of 47 years. The overrun costs are enormous. Much of that expenditure has to be analysed critically. We would question the usefulness of continuing to press ahead with the full NHS IT project at a time when the NHS budget is under a great deal of pressure.
	We have had a debate about the principles of the ID cards scheme. The Home Secretary referred to it in his contribution to the debate on the Queen's Speech. However, we need to ask questions about the costs and who will pay for the scheme. The Government have never properly answered that. It has always been understood that as long as the scheme was voluntary, it would be paid for by user charges. However, when the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), was in post, he indicated that when the scheme became compulsory—as it would in the next Parliament—it would be made free or would be heavily subsidised at a cost of somewhere between £5 billion and £20 billion. We have never had a proper explanation of where that money is going to come from, how it will be accounted for, or how it can be justified.
	My colleagues and I thought that the Prime Minister's energy report, which was published by the Cabinet Office in 2003, was an admirable summary of all the issues involved in energy policy. It covered the ground well. Security of supply, energy poverty and the environmental cost were well balanced. The report came to the conclusion that new nuclear power was unnecessary. A year later the policy changed and we now have an open-ended commitment to supporting new nuclear power. Again, it is unclear how that will be funded. Much of it will happen through the charging policies of the electricity utilities. The Government appear to have entered into a new set of commitments in relation to decommissioning and, possibly, the acquisition of land for the new plants to be established. Again, that has to be factored into public expenditure.

Ian Davidson: The hon. Gentleman has raised several points about spending without telling us where the Liberals stand on them. For clarification, does he agree with the position adopted by his colleague Lord Garden, who indicated that he wanted the aircraft carriers to which the Government are committed to be built in the United States, rather than on Clydeside and elsewhere in the United Kingdom?

Vincent Cable: I am not familiar with the details of the argument about the contract for aircraft carriers, but we would want to ensure that it was dealt with properly and cost-effectively. They should be bought where the equipment is cheapest and fit for purpose, wherever that happens to be. There is no role for protectionism in this field, as the Government acknowledge. The hon. Gentleman also asks what we would cut. I have listed a series of areas of public spending that we would cut to finance our priorities.
	Let me raise a topical matter. Last week, the question of Olympic costs was raised. There was all-party consensus on supporting the project on the basis of a set of cost estimates that was produced with the Olympic bid. Those estimates are proving to be hopelessly and wildly unrealistic and the considerable limitations in the project management skills of Mr. Ken Livingstone have been exposed. When the Chancellor signed up to an open-ended public liability commitment, as is required by the International Olympic Committee, why did he not check the costs? What is his estimate of the public liability and, especially, of the element of that liability that will fall on the national Exchequer? The Government have big questions to answer about those elements of public spending.

Michael Weir: The hon. Gentleman mentioned an all-party agreement on the Olympics. He was not quite correct, because Scottish National Members pointed out those very flaws right at the beginning. I recall his leader shouting at us angrily for pressing the matter to a vote because of our concerns about the escalating costs of the Olympics.

Vincent Cable: Some of us expressed scepticism about the costs from the very beginning, but we wished to be constructive and wanted the Olympics to succeed. Clearly, however, we must be prudent about costs, although it is clear that the Government have not been.
	Apart from public spending growth, the other element of unsustainability in the economy relates to personal debt. We have had a remarkable recent trend of consumer expenditure running ahead of the growth of the national economy in every single year. One of the consequences of that has been that the savings ratio has fallen from 10 per cent. to less than 5 per cent. A further consequence has been the substantial build-up of personal debt. The aggregate figure, which is about 150 per cent. of income, is the highest in the developed world by a long way and the highest in British history. Much of that has been necessitated by the enormous boom in house prices, with 85 per cent. of that debt secured against houses. Of course, much of the problem is a matter between private borrowers and private companies, rather than a matter for the Government, but the Government could and should be doing many things.
	Over the years, the Government have talked about promoting generic financial advice, but very little has happened. They have talked about financial education, and although a little bit is happening as part of maths education, we have seen little else. There seemed to be possibilities for debt pooling, but that has not happened on any scale. We are now faced with a possible collapse in the insurance market for mortgages, which would expose many people to vast liabilities and possible repossession owing to the failure of the market. The Government should be focusing on those matters, but they are not.
	In the last part of my speech, I wish to refer to big, long-term issues, which, if properly handled, could take us very far forward. The first such issue is the response to Stern. The Government were fortunate to have access to Nick Stern, who is probably one of the really outstanding economists in the world. His analysis is outstanding and recognised internationally. The Stern report came up with several clear conclusions: action is needed urgently; action is needed initially in the developed world; and we in this country have responsibility for sharing the lead on that action. In due course, we will have a system of internationally traded permits at the European and global levels, but in the meantime, national policy will largely focus on taxation. We have led the way in that debate, and the Conservatives are following, although it is unclear exactly what they are advocating.
	We have a difference with the Government, however. It may be an artificial disagreement, but I hope that in the course of this debate it will be clarified. The Government have criticised us, and the Conservatives, for arguing for environmental taxes on the grounds that there is a fundamental incompatibility between raising taxes to change behaviour and raising taxes to raise revenue. I ask the Chancellor to reflect on something that I am sure he would consider a success, the climate change levy. The levy has undoubtedly had a significant effect in reducing carbon emissions; there are good independent academic studies to support that assertion. It has also raised in total about £4 billion in revenue, which has been fed back in tax cuts elsewhere. It seems an entirely sensible precedent, and I am at a loss to understand why the Government have such difficulty with the idea of applying that principle more widely.
	I conclude with a few words on Turner and pensions. There is a broad consensus on the overriding architecture. We all accept that there has to be improvement in the basic system of state pensions and it has to be offset by delayed pension ages. We all agree that there needs to be a new system of state second pension provision with employer, employee and Government support. Our disagreements are partly about timing.
	We take the view that it is unnecessary to depart from Turner's recommendations. The Government seem to have brought forward by five years the later retirement age and postponed by five years the age at which people will be entitled to earnings linking with their pension. Of course there are costs involved in that, and there are tough choices to be made. We believe that the Government have ducked some of those tough choices in failing to deal, for example, with the issue of public sector pensions. We also disagree with the Government's decision to depart from Turner's conclusions in respect of women, or more generally the citizens' chest for pensions.
	The big philosophical disagreement, however, is about the role of means-testing. We take the view that the longer the postponement of the improved state pension, the greater the number of people who will be sucked into means-testing over a long period, and that will have very damaging economic consequences. The Government, and particularly the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, of whom I have asked questions on this matter several times, believe that there is no significant disincentive effect from a marginal rate of tax and benefit withdrawal of 40 per cent., but we believe that there is. We find it very difficult to square the Government's relative agnosticism on this question with their insistence that they must retain a system of 40 per cent. tax relief for high earners. If incentives work at the top end of the scale, why do they not work at the bottom? If incentives are important in saving for pensions, why are not the Government much more concerned about the damaging impact of means-testing?
	The Chancellor will shortly have the opportunity to present his pre-Budget report. It could be an opportunity for crowing and displaying self-satisfaction, and he will be entitled to a certain measure of that, but I hope that, in the national interest and in the interest of his own credibility as Prime Minister, if that is what he becomes, he will start to acknowledge that there are very serious problems of imbalances in the British economy which will have to be addressed, and that there are big long-term challenges in environmental taxation and pensions policy which the Government are so far ducking.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that there is a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches and that applies from now.

Tony Wright: Listening to the exchanges earlier, I could not help wondering what my constituents would make of them if they were listening. I was thinking in particular of two groups of my constituents: those who have been affected by the collapse of Farepak—I have at least 200 families in that position—and those who have seen their occupational pensions disappear in recent years and are looking for help to remedy that. I do not think that they would have been much cheered by some of the scenes that we saw earlier. It was difficult to be impressed by the shadow Chancellor, who gave a characteristically public school debating speech. He is not here, but my advice to him would be to adopt a rather different tone if he wants to be taken entirely seriously. He deserved the clunking demolition that the Chancellor delivered to him.
	The Chancellor has said on a previous occasion that Farepak is a national disaster, and it is, in a variety of ways. It has also prompted all those who have been affected by the collapse of their occupational pensions to write. They say that although it is good that we are all getting exercised by Farepak, giving a day's salary and participating in other campaigns to help the customers, and rightly so, what are we doing to help the tens of thousands of people who have lost all their occupational pensions through no fault of their own?
	My answer is that we should help both groups of people; they are not alternatives. They expect the Government to do what they can to remedy the failings of the market.

John Redwood: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that taking £5 billion a year out of pension funds' income, causing a £100 billion reduction in capital value, was the main reason people do not have proper pensions?

Tony Wright: Here again we see the instinctive temptation to make some instant political point that might help the general political case along. That is not what more than 100,000 people who have been affected by the removal of their occupational pensions want to hear. They want to hear something practical about what is going to be done.

Philip Dunne: Which would the hon. Gentleman regard as the more overtly political: making a statement, as did the Minister for Trade, that he would give up a day's salary, or telling customers of Farepak—I am doing this with my constituents—that if their agents paid their subscription by credit card, they are likely to be protected under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and can get their money back? Indeed, one of my constituents has already got more than £3,000 back.

Tony Wright: People want to know how this could happen and what we are going to do about it.
	I have a letter from a woman in my constituency who says that she is extremely pleased to hear what all of us are doing about Farepak. Like other hon. Members, I am trying to do some things locally as well as encouraging people to contribute to the national campaign. She writes:
	"Since my last email to you, we have had very bad luck. My husband took action to salvage a small amount of money so that our three children aged one, eight and nine could at least have some presents. He worked day shifts and night sifts and even call-outs but sadly on Sunday 5 November he had an accident at work and was taken to hospital, where they attempted to save his finger. As you can see, he is unable to go back to work. I am now totally devastated and really have no choice but to tell my children that Christmas will have to be cancelled this year. I hope that the Farepak bosses and HBOS can sleep at night because I know I can't with worry."
	The point of mentioning that is not that it is a case of individual hardship; there are thousands of such cases and thousands of families in this position. What they want to know is how a company could behave in that way. How could a company continue to take in money, knowing that it was going to go somewhere else? How could a bank have withdrawn support, knowing what the consequences would be? We have discovered in the past few days that a firm of administrators set up a premium rate telephone line so that it will make some money out of the people who phone up to find out what has happened to their money. How can that be?
	I am not surprised that some people are saying that the Farepak episode has given us a glimpse at the unsavoury face of corporate life. It has given us a glimpse into a trend whereby some people in our society behave in ways that enable them to get extremely rich, while many are desperately poor. The gap between those two groups is getting ever greater. A disconnection, which is not only financial but moral, is setting in between a world of mega-greed, about which we seem to say little on occasions such as this, and a world of desperate poverty. The Farepak episode has drawn back the veil, enabling us to glimpse what kind of world this is. The Government are rightly asked by people who have suffered as a result of the collapse of Farepak to do all that they can to remedy this market failure.

Julia Goldsworthy: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that many people lost a year's-worth of savings? Given that very high personal debt levels and very low saving levels are involved, we need to do all we can to encourage people, particularly those with very low incomes, to save. This matter will have destroyed their confidence not only in Farepak, but in saving altogether.

Tony Wright: One of the features of this episode is that we are dealing with people who have tried to do everything right. They have tried not to run up debts, including credit card debt, and have sought to save in the safest way possible. One lady said to me, "You may think it silly that I did not just put the money into the bank and get some interest on it, but I know that had I done so I would have taken that money during the year." These are the people with whom we are dealing, and they are asking how companies, banks and administrators can behave in this way. Such people then ask Government what they are going to do about it, both in a rescue sense and, more broadly, in a compensatory and a regulatory sense.
	This is one of the occasions when the rhetorical demand for less regulation suddenly meets the fact that a group of people has been the victim of the lack of regulation in an area and wants that area remedied. That is one group of people who would have expected more from today's exchanges.
	A second such group is made up of all those people, possibly numbering up to 120,000, who lost some or all of their occupational pension scheme when schemes wound up between 1997 and 2004. This case has now been exhaustively analysed by the parliamentary ombudsman, so we have no excuse for not knowing the facts. An inadequate regulatory framework enabled events to happen. People thought that the final salary pension schemes were safe, as they had been told endlessly.
	Indeed, the previous Conservative Government took action after the Maxwell case, which affected some 30,000 people. At that time, we put together a compensation package that provided almost total compensation within weeks. After that case, the Pensions Act 1995 was enacted, setting in place a regulatory structure with minimal funding requirements and so on, which effectively told people, "Your final salary pension scheme is safe". As the parliamentary ombudsman has shown us, official literature told people that that was the case. In fact, they were not safe, and thousands of people who did nothing wrong but believe the assurances they were given have lost the whole of their lifetime pension savings. Of course they ask, like the Farepak customers, "How could this have happened? We did everything right—we did everything that we were told to do. We were prudent. We saved—we invested in our pensions—and this has happened." Of course they ask the Government to put together a compensation package, as happened in the case of Maxwell, and then want them to take steps, as they already have, to ensure that this does not happen again.
	As I understand it, the Government have a twofold response on why they cannot do what is sought. First, they say, "It's not entirely our responsibility." The answer to that is that no one has said that it is entirely the responsibility of the Government—by that I mean the previous Government and this one—but the fact is that they put in place the regulatory framework within which such schemes operate, they said what would happen when they were wound up and what the order of priority was, they put in a minimum funding requirement, and they put out leaflets telling people that the schemes were safe, guaranteed and protected by law. It is therefore not surprising that people now say: "You have an obligation to do something about the collapse of these schemes and the collapse of our entire pension savings."
	The second argument that the Government use is that it would be extraordinarily expensive to provide a compensation package for those affected. I understand why they should say that—there is an argument about what the figure really is—but I do not want to be detained by that point. My point is that it is a curious argument that says that if the figure were less and fewer people were affected, it would not be so difficult to remedy the injustice, which the ombudsman found be at least partly a consequence of official maladministration. It is a curious argument that says that because the problem is serious and significantly affects large numbers of people it cannot be remedied, whereas if it were a smaller problem it could be remedied. That cannot be a tenable position to hold. I hope that the Government are still in discussions about this and that they will seek to build on the financial assistance scheme that they have already introduced in order to provide more effective assistance for these people, because whoever is culpable for what has happened, they certainly are not.
	My constituents and others listening to the debate might feel more cheered by the way in which the Government are beginning seriously to engage with some of the long-term issues that transcend day-to-day knockabout party politics. That is particularly true of pensions policy, which has been dogged for decades by our inability to think other than in the short term or to think outside the box of normal tribal, adversarial party politics. That is why we have a pensions system of such complexity, with bits added on but no fundamental reform. There was a nice moment in the 1950s when the Labour party had proposed a comprehensive pensions scheme called the national superannuation scheme, causing the Macmillan Government to reflect on what to do in response. Macmillan wrote to his Ministers:
	"In the long run we shall all be dead...So do not let us bother too much as long as we do not spend too much for the next two or three years."
	That is an entirely characteristic statement of what one might called the "nimto" tendency in British politics. We know about nimby, but this is "nimto", or "not in my term of office". However, some issues cannot be dealt with in that way, of which pensions are the key issue. One history of the politics of post-war pension policy, by Hugh Pemberton, says that
	"the short-term horizons and adversarial nature of British politics are profoundly unsuited to crafting pensions policy."
	That has been the case, and the history of pensions in this country shows it.
	Now, not only on the pensions front, but on many others—climate change is the other obvious example—we politicians are being asked to get outside the box of short-termism and adverserialism, and try to reach long-term agreement that will stick across generations. It goes against the grain and cuts against the culture, but it is something that we must do. I give the Government credit for establishing the Pensions Commission and the other reviews to try to enable us to deal with such issues in a rather more sensible and long-term way than we have done before. If we do that, we bring credit to ourselves and give this and future generations the kind of security that people look to us to provide.

John Redwood: I am a company director and a pension trustee, and I have declared my interests in the register.
	This afternoon was a great missed opportunity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a fairly full House. He could have reported on his stewardship of the United Kingdom economy over the years. He could have explained why the Treasury wishes to sponsor legislation in the forthcoming Session. He could have taken us through the legislation that the other economic Departments are sponsoring, and he could have told us how he wished to tackle the obvious problems that we see around us in the British economy. Instead, he chose to be even more juvenile than he usually is. To summarise the Chancellor's speech, it said that a number of Conservative Back Benchers had, over the months, called for various taxes to be reduced or abolished and that if we added all those up, it would amount to a lot of money—which, by some mystery, would be the first Budget of an incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Conservative party.
	Dream on, Chancellor of the Exchequer. My hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has made it clear that he will not produce a shadow Budget until much nearer the general election. How wise he is. We have no idea how much worse the public accounts will be before we have the chance to govern the country again. We also believe that if the Chancellor becomes Prime Minister, he will need to delay a general election until 2010, so there is a lot more scope for him to debauch the public accounts. The Chancellor is driven to living in a make-believe world where any random comment by a Back Bencher or any aspiration by the Conservative party is wrongly reported as likely Government policy for 2010, which really does not do the House any good.

Michael Connarty: The right hon. Gentleman may come on to the fact that a number of shadow Ministers have made spending commitments during the Queen's Speech debate. If those commitments are not misleading the public about what a Conservative Government would do, what is the purpose of making them? Those promises were made, but the right hon. Gentleman now says that no one should take them seriously. Tell the public that.

John Redwood: The sad truth of life, which the public understand but the hon. Gentleman does not, is that we have no power to do any of those things, and will probably continue not to have that power for another three years, because of the likely delay in the general election. My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench are quite entitled to give the Government advice about our priorities, and about what we would like more money spent on and what we would like less money spent on, and we do both of those things. We would like to save all the money on identity cards and unnecessary regional government, which we would like abolished. We would like far less bureaucracy and an end to the enormous controls over local government that cost more than £1 billion a year.
	We therefore recommend spending reductions and some spending increases to this Government now. We do not want to have to equip our forces properly in 2010 because they were not properly equipped in 2006; we would like them to be properly equipped now. We are not talking about dealing with the spending crisis in the hospitals when we come in 2010; we are giving the Government advice to deal with it now. It is on their watch. They are wasting so much money that it would be quite possible to sort out those problems with inadequate spending in some areas, save more money in other areas and end up with better public accounts, if only they would learn how to spend money more wisely. I do not want to get involved in the political ping-pong that the Chancellor has decided should be the substance of today's debate, as it frustrates the public and means that we do not discuss the real issues of how we collect money, how much money we collect and how we spend it.

Edward Balls: The right hon. Gentleman should not downplay the importance of his role. Will he inform the House of the date on which he plans to produce his report on competitiveness for the shadow Chancellor?

John Redwood: That is a sensible question, and if the hon. Gentleman had been present for previous debates, he would already know the answer. I have told the Chancellor many times that I aim to report in the summer of 2007. I am delighted that the Chancellor already knows what will be in my report. He is ahead of me, as I have not yet decided what I and my committee will recommend on school choice, patient choice, health spending and the other issues that he thinks we will cover—we may or may not. I have already published a few ideas on the problems of this economy and why it is not as competitive as it should be.
	Let us begin with the issue that always fascinates the Government most: taxation. The Chancellor is right that I gave a presentation a long time ago saying that Britain was still fairly tax-competitive. I went on to say that it was going in the wrong direction and becoming less tax-competitive. Were I giving such a presentation today, I would conclude that we are now not tax-competitive enough. How many more companies need to say that they are thinking of going offshore before the Chancellor and the Economic Secretary will do something? Have they considered what has happened in the case of Shell, which has decided to put everything into Holland? Do they realise that Holland, let alone Ireland, is now more tax-competitive than Britain? Will they understand that Ireland has been growing three times as quickly as the United Kingdom on this Chancellor's watch? The main reason for that, which he does not wish to accept, is that Ireland has set much lower business tax rates, which have acted as a phenomenal magnet for inward investment into Ireland.

Edward Balls: Let us be clear. The right hon. Gentleman is going to produce a report next summer in which he will propose tax cuts for business to make our economy more competitive. Clearly, that is the implication of his speech so far.

John Redwood: That is one possible conclusion, but I will produce a grown-up report, which shows where we will get revenue from, how much we will spend and so on. I have not completed all that work yet. I am guided and helped by my noble Friend Lord Forsyth, who has produced an excellent report setting out how he would propose to cut the headline rate of corporation tax and pay for some of that through changes to the allowance system, which could create a much fairer system for many companies. That is an interesting idea, which we shall evaluate.

Brooks Newmark: It might help the Economic Secretary to know that there is something called the Laffer curve, and the evidence seems to show that, as Ireland has become more tax-competitive, its Government have raised more tax revenues.

John Redwood: The increase in taxation in Ireland has been phenomenal, and the super-fast growth of the Irish economy stimulated by lower business tax rates has been the main factor. I have not heard any other possible explanation from the Government. It is some four or five months since I first raised the issue, and there is still no official Government position on why Ireland's growth has been three times that of the United Kingdom. Nor is there any answer to my supplementary question: why does Scotland do so badly, only growing at 13.5 per cent. under this Chancellor between 1998 and 2004, compared with 20 per cent. growth for the UK and 61 per cent. for Ireland? That seems to show that the current Chancellor's model of heavy public spending and public sector dependence in Scotland, which he seems to like so much, is particularly bad for the Scottish people. As we see in the parliamentary Labour party, many of Scotland's most talented people come to England in search of better jobs.

Stewart Hosie: Public sector size is an issue, which the right hon. Gentleman should take on board. It is useful to bear in mind that were the Scottish oil and gas sector included in GDP, the public sector would account for only 41 per cent. of GDP, not 51 per cent. With regard to tax, does he agree that if the rumours are to be believed and Northern Ireland is to have a reduced corporation tax rate, offering that to one part of the UK and not the others would blow a hole in the Government's argument that it is not a useful measure?

John Redwood: I am delighted if the Government now think that Northern Ireland should have that lower corporation tax rate to compete with southern Ireland, but I want it for the whole United Kingdom. If it makes sense for Northern Ireland, surely it would make sense for the UK as a whole.

Edward Balls: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he will propose a reduced corporation tax for the whole United Kingdom?

John Redwood: That is a possibility, although the Minister must understand that I study such matters carefully before committing my name to a particular recommendation. But the case is now very clear, and he and the Chancellor ought to be studying it and coming up with an answer, because they have the opportunity to do something. It is a fact of life that some very large companies are thinking of going offshore. One or two have already done so. Ireland is beating us very easily, and is now a richer country per head than the United Kingdom as a result of the Chancellor's watch. The Chancellor needs to come up with an answer for why we are so slow—particularly in Scotland and western and northern England—compared with Ireland, and what he is going to do about it.

Philip Dunne: Perhaps my right hon. Friend agrees with me that the Financial Secretary needs to listen more to his new friends in the City, where I believe he is undertaking a prawn cocktail offensive. According to a report by the Investment Management Association and KPMG, since 1995 the increase in funds raised in Ireland has been double that in the United Kingdom. Why?

John Redwood: It is obvious that a more lightly taxed and better-regulated area—which I think southern Ireland now is, in some respects—will do much better. That is a simple example, which the Government ought to study and act on very quickly.
	There are many other areas in which the Chancellor seems now to accept that work needs to be done. The Prime Minister has a strategy unit studying all this, and we are told that the Chancellor's own reports are imminent. Why has it taken almost 10 years for the Government to realise that we have a transport crisis in this country? It is no good their saying that there was not enough investment in the railways 35 years ago. There has not been enough investment in any kind of transport for the last decade. It was this Government who cancelled the road schemes. It is this Government who have come up with no new main rail scheme at all: they merely finished off the channel link that we had already introduced. It is this Government who have not come up with any new tube line, unlike the last Conservative Government, who initiated a major new line. Absolutely nothing has been happening on this Government's watch in terms of major investment in transport.
	I think the Government have now realised, after nine years or more, that our big problem is a shortage of transport of all kinds. It is no good taking the route suggested by the Deputy Prime Minister, who said that the problem could be dealt with by our switching modes—making it very difficult for people to drive around in their cars and vans, so that they would go shopping by train and transport their goods as rail freight. Given that the railways account for only about 6 per cent. of journey miles undertaken, even if the Government could double their size that would deal with only a couple of years' increase in travel in a strongly growing economy. The Government must realise that while we need more railway capacity, we also need much more road capacity. If the Government wish to be serious about reducing carbon emissions, they must understand that making traffic flow more swiftly is a way of doing that. The main problem of carbon emissions for road transport is the number of cars, lorries and vans that are stuck in traffic jams, thus creating a great deal more pollution.
	Another problem is that the Government heap regulation upon regulation on our poor economy. That is why the trend rate of growth in productivity and output per head is slowing under this Government: the extra burdens of tax and regulation are proving too great. It is why we have lost more than a million manufacturing jobs on the Chancellor's watch so far. The Chancellor never bothers to tell the House about that figure, although he used to be very interested in manufacturing job losses when he was in opposition. He always told us that he would follow a policy that changed all that, but in many ways his record is far worse than that of previous Governments, with over a million jobs gone and all those interventions—all the extra regulation and taxation—getting in the way of manufacturers' ability to flourish and expand their businesses here.
	Of course we need a major deregulation programme, but all we ever get from the Government are statements of good will and good intention. We are told that they will act at some point, but I believe that since the Prime Minister announced his initiative a further 5,000 regulations have been added to the statute book. I do not suppose the Minister can recall the names of any of the regulations that the Government have struck off, so few and so unimportant were they. We need the Government to do something like what the Dutch have done. They have in place, and working very effectively, a system of cutting the regulatory burden imposed by each Department year on year by setting targets.
	Normally this Government, under this Chancellor, love targets. The Treasury loves anything that enables it to put its fingers into the pies of other Departments, so why does it not take on this task, and set regulatory budgets, which will lead to a decline in regulatory costs year after year? So much regulation achieves the opposite of what it sets out to achieve. So much of it produces very little in the way of benefit compared with the enormous cost that it imposes.
	On the energy problem, I do not know when the Government will respond to the obvious pain of the heavy energy-using industries, whose representatives have been coming to this House for many months to lobby MPs of all political persuasions. The price of energy in Britain is far too expensive compared with places such as Holland, let alone lower wage areas of the world. That is why we are losing big new investments such as that in extra steel capacity. Such investors would rather go to a place like Holland where the gas supplies are more reliable and the price is a lot cheaper than here in the United Kingdom.
	On this Government's watch, we have in terms of energy gone from being a relatively low-cost country to being a high-cost and uncertain supply country. On this Government's watch, we have had no proper response on how they will fill the gap as and when the nuclear power stations have to be retired, and as the easy supplies from our sector of the North sea dwindle or no longer meet the requirements of our gas-using industries, homes and offices.
	We desperately need policy now from this Government on energy, but all we have had is a weak statement of intent and an expression of the wish to consult and have another public debate on the nuclear issue. We are beyond the point where we need a debate; we are at the point where we need regulatory decisions and other decisions from the Government, and ways in which the private sector can then get on and make the necessary investments.
	I suspect that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is already thinking that he can now add up some figures to show that what is wanted is more railway investment, more road investment and more energy investment and that that can all be put down to the public sector. But please will those on the Treasury Bench be a little less juvenile on this occasion? Most, if not all, of that investment could be put in through private sector activity. We know that people want to spend more on transport. We see them spending fortunes on private transport. They spend a great deal on new vans, new cars and new lorries because they feel that that is the only option that they have for many of their journeys and business tasks. They are prepared to spend, but the Government have to grant the planning permissions, create the framework and provide the rules for infrastructure investment, because infrastructure is important, and there is a need for it to extend across the country, which obviously affects interests around the country.
	Investment in energy should come wholly from the private sector. Why is that not happening at present? Because the Government are not giving a certain sound on the trumpet in respect of how the rules will be worked out, what the pricing mechanisms will be, which planning permissions will be available and which technologies are favoured. It is up to the Government to make clearer sounds, and private investment will then follow.
	One of the very few positive moments in the Chancellor's speech came when he said that he was going to tell us something about improving skills in Britain, but he then went off on yet another rant about some statement made by some Conservative Back Bencher, which obviously fascinated him rather more. It would have been good to have heard from the Chancellor about what he is going to do about the 5.3 million people on benefits, many of whom would like, or need, jobs. We know about the unemployed; we have already heard in this debate about the plight of the unemployed and rising unemployment. But there are many other people, such as those on single-parent benefit and disability benefit, who would like jobs of a kind, and who could make a contribution, but they are not managing to get those jobs.
	We are told that the Government wish to do something about that. What are they going to do about it? Ten years on, have they yet found the magic key to the door? Will they do something to improve the quality and attractiveness of vocational skills? Will they get rid of some of the awful bureaucracy that stands between the employer and the potential student and the vocational training course? Will they do more to strengthen the vocational strand for 14 to 16-year-olds in schools? A few schools are doing well—as is one in my constituency—but others have not copied what they do or followed on from that.
	When will the Government do more to help higher education? We have some very fine universities in this country, and they remain high up in the world league tables, but the Chancellor must have noticed that Harvard is getting into a league of its own, given the amount of money it raises and its success not only in attracting money, but in investing that money very well. I suspect we in Britain need to freshen-up the range of tax reliefs to private donors to universities, because we need to strengthen the voluntary principle and the endowment funding of our universities; that is falling a long way behind the levels of private endowment that the leading US institutions enjoy.
	Why does that matter? It matters because if people want to have a top university, they have to be able to pay top dollar to get the best brains to become faculty members. If they wish to have a top university, they need to attract the most talented students from anywhere in the world, and some of them come from very poor families, and if they can offer bursaries, scholarships, travel grants and so forth, that helps to attract such talent.
	Will the Chancellor also have a word with the Home Office about such people's access to visas? Genuine students have difficulties in getting visas to enter our country, which puts them off and means that they would rather go to the United States of America. For example, there can be difficulties in them getting a visa for one year of working after they have graduated in Britain—because they wish to get the experience as well as the academic qualification—before they go home, where they wish to go. The Government could take an interest in practical measures and in doing something, if they were not spending all their time reading Conservative websites and Back-Bench Conservative Members' speeches.
	We find it very flattering that everything we say is of such enormous significance. But the Government must understand that they are, believe it or not, the Government. They are responsible for the lack of transport capacity, the lack of energy capacity and the lack of tax competitiveness that is now getting worse in this country, as well as for the over-burdensome regulation, and for the lack of good vocational skills programmes, which could get many of those millions who are currently not in the work force back into that.

Michael Connarty: It was a pleasure to listen to the grown-up speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), which was much better than the childish rant of the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne). I do not know what has come over the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that he should be brought back to the Front Bench to make a serious contribution, rather than remain stuck on the Back Benches. I also enjoyed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), and I might refer to some of the things that he said later.
	I shall not pick up on all the points made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham, but I wish to raise certain matters. It is stated in the second paragraph of the Queen's Speech:
	"A stable economy is the foundation of a fair and prosperous society. My Government will continue to maintain low inflation, sound public finances and high employment."
	The Chancellor should be commended for doing that over the past decade. The Queen's Speech also states that the Government will try
	"to help the most vulnerable members of society."
	That is, in a sense, why I rise to speak.
	It is clear that some of the issues that I wish to raise are Department of Trade and Industry issues, but I notice that no DTI day has been allocated in the Queen's Speech debate. I hope, however, that the Chancellor has much influence on that and other parts of the Government, and that he will have even more in the very near future.
	Regardless of what is said in the course of all the yah-boo politics, and in all the factional bids for this power or that power or for spending on this or on that, people I talk to in the part of the country that I come from and elsewhere recognise that we have had a stable and growing economy over the past decade, whereas there have been some heavy storms in other parts of the world, and there has been a difficult period for the European Union when the euro did not take off as it should have and we did not get the growth that we expected. The Chancellor has seen all of that through, as well as problems that arose in other economies, and our economy has continued to grow.
	The economy in my constituency is such that people are not rushing abroad. INEOS, the largest privately owned company in the UK, has bought the olefins and derivatives business of BP and it has now committed itself to spending £60 million on what is probably the world's largest biofuels plant, in Grangemouth. That will be a flagship venture for many others in low-carbon technologies.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman mentions the investment in that bioplant, which is to be greatly welcomed, but obviously there were specific skills and technology in the plant in that area which it was possible to bid for, so the circumstances are slightly different from those in most parts of Scotland. Notwithstanding what he said at the beginning of his speech, does he agree that over the past 10 years the growth rate in the UK has been about 2.9 per cent., while growth in Scotland has been only about 2 per cent.? He cannot be proud of a 30 per cent. gap in growth between Scotland and the UK over the entire watch of this Government.

Michael Connarty: I have to disagree with my hon. Friend—I shall call him my hon. Friend because I know that his motives in this regard are good—because he is not correct. He must admit that Scotland is a much more attractive part of the United Kingdom to live in than most others. Although the south-east has a growing economy, there is congestion and young people working in professions such as teaching and social services and in the more minor professions, which do not pay the large wages that the City pays, cannot afford to buy a house. In Scotland, however, we have got the balance right and growth has been steady. There are people in my constituency who are in work, education or higher education and were not when the Conservatives were in power. That slow, steady growth has meant that we have not had the boom and bust in the housing market that England experienced. We should be proud of what has been achieved. I know that my hon. Friend thinks that independence for Scotland would mean a new start and that things would be completely different, but, as an economist, I disagree. The parameters of this growth are based on a United Kingdom economy, not on a small economy and country of 5 million people, most of whose large companies are located elsewhere.
	What could threaten our economic stability is the confusion generated by the Conservatives. They are sending out various messages—cuts of £20 million, £30 million, or £50 million; no cuts; get out of the European Union; stay in the European Union—that could create instability. Let them adopt a grown-up approach and take the issues on board. Let us have a serious debate, unlike what we heard earlier in response to the Chancellor's speech; that way, we might make some progress. People can see, however, that the economy is on a stable trajectory, and that it is not threatened by the confusion that marks the Conservative party's policy.
	I always remember an admonition that is credited to a much higher moral source than me. The Bible says, "If you do this to these the littlest of my children, you do this unto me." I do not think that "littlest" means just children. People often say that that passage is about kids, but it is about those who are devoid of power, wealth or income. Correspondence that I have received shows that the Department for Work and Pensions is not willing to prevent housing departments from seizing people's benefits to pay for housing arrears, thereby causing the downward spiral into poverty that occurs when people lose their jobs and cannot keep up their payments. Indeed, in some cases people cannot even make the relevant claim. We need to intervene and to do something about the problem. The blind, for example, cannot claim the higher rate mobility allowance. A personal assistant of mine who suffered from retinitis pigmentosa went blind. That he could be denied higher rate mobility allowance, which would have enabled him to get around, is a joke. We are not taking this issue sufficiently seriously.
	It is a question of redistribution, and in that regard I want to raise a number of issues: the national minimum wage and tips, the working time directive, the temporary workers directive, and the treatment of UK pensioners living overseas. If I have time, I shall also discuss Farepak. As Members know, I tabled a ten-minute Bill on the national minimum wage. All those whom I spoke to said that they did not know that when we add a service charge in a restaurant when paying by credit card or cheque, it does not go to the person who served us. By law, it belongs to the proprietor. The reality is that regulation 31(1)(e) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999, which were passed by this Labour Government, says that any money paid through the payroll—be it a gratuity, a service charge or a cover charge—counts toward the minimum wage. I have asked the Prime Minister about this issue and spoken to the DTI and the Low Pay Commission, but they will not amend the regulation.
	What really offends me is that the Inland Revenue has yet again sent out form E24 (2006)—in fact, it was incorrectly sent out as form E24 (2005)—which effectively tells employers to put such tips through the payroll, so that they can be charged to the minimum wage. It also says that if a tronc—in other words, a kitty—is paid through the payroll, that counts toward the minimum wage too. I have been to restaurants in Glasgow and in London with very expensive charges. Their menus state that there is a voluntary 12.5 per cent. charge, which goes to the workers. When I quietly asked those workers about that, they said, "Yes, it does—and it is part of, not on top of, our minimum wage." I want this Labour Government to do something for labour—for the least well paid in this economy, who are living on the minimum wage and who often work very long hours. Their proprietors are paying their wages with their tips. It is up to this Government to show that they are a Labour Government and that they do care for "the littlest" in our society. They must change regulation 31(1)(e) and close that loophole.
	Once again, we have failed to get an agreement on the working time directive at European level. The UK was told by other countries that we have to name the day when 48 hours means 48 hours. The Minister with responsibility for such issues tried to do a deal on 60 or 65 hours. It is time that our Government accepted that we are the black sheep of the family in Europe on this issue; it is we who are holding back agreement on the working time directive. It is time that they gave a date—

Charles Walker: Is it really the role of the Government to tell people how long they may work?

Michael Connarty: It is the role of the Government to protect people from exploitation and to look after their health. Such a provision works in the rest of Europe. Many Opposition Members have intervened today to tell us about what is working well in other parts of Europe. In my view, a 48-hour week is a very long week, and a 65-hour week is not acceptable. Because we did not name the day when we will implement the 48-hour regulation, we could not get agreement on the Jaeger ruling. People who have stood down from their duties but who are on call have to be paid; however, 23 of the 25 EU countries are breaking that rule because we could not reach agreement on the Jaeger ruling. We could not do so because we would not accept a date for the introduction of the 48-hour regulation.
	The temporary workers directive protects people who work for agencies. Currently, British workers are being laid off and taken back on as agency workers, with no right to holidays, sickness pay or a pension, or they are being replaced by agency workers from the eight countries who joined the EU during the last round of enlargement. An agency worker is not an employee: they are not employed by the agency or by the company in question. Sixteen EU countries already have a rule that recognises that those who are "employed" by an agency are indeed that agency's employee, and they get proper sickness benefit, holiday pay and pension. It is us, along with three other EU countries, who are holding back implementation of this directive. I do not have to tell the Minister—he used to work for the TUC—about the Warwick agreement. We—this Labour party and Government—said that we would speedily implement that agreement, but it has been held up for four years.
	I was distressed to read in "Success at Work: Protecting Vulnerable Workers, Supporting Good Employers"—it is the Government's own document—that the Government believe that the labour market's current needs are being met, and that there is no need for further legislation in this area. How does that fit in with the Warwick agreement, which said that we would help to implement the temporary workers directive? As Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I know that we are one of the four countries in the EU preventing implementation of that directive. It is time that we did something about this issue.
	I turn to the treatment of UK pensioners overseas. There are 970,000 ex-pat pensioners, 520,000 of whom had their pensions frozen at the level that applied when they left the UK, or when they received their pension, if they were of pensionable age. The other 450,000 had fully contributed, fully paid-up, index-linked pensions. The situation that I am describing arises only in certain countries: Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and most other Commonwealth countries. People who have moved to the USA, Israel, the Philippines—people often go to such places because they are regarded as tax havens— Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Turkey and what was Yugoslavia get their uprating. However, those who have moved to the Commonwealth countries that I named do not. That is intolerable.
	The complaint is that we cannot afford to pay that uprating—that it would cost £400 million per annum. According to analysis by the British Australian Pensioner Association, conducted through the Government Actuary, in 2005-06 the national insurance fund had received overpayments in excess of £4.34 billion. According to the forecast, in 2020 the surplus will be £60.64 billion.

Helen Goodman: Does my hon. Friend agree that when people live abroad they are no longer a burden on our health service, as they use the health and other services of other countries? That is a further saving for British public expenditure.

Michael Connarty: That is a very perceptive intervention. In a tit-for-tat response, Australia has now withdrawn its support. I have a constituent in the odd position of having lived here for some time and earned some pension, but who lived for 20 years in Australia and earned some pension there. He comes back to this country and finds that he will not receive his Australian pension because we started a tit-for-tat war with Commonwealth countries by denying pensioners the inflation uprating. If we have any morality or Labour principles, we should look after the people who paid into the national insurance system over a long lifetime of work in this country.
	I have done a lot of work on the Farepak scandal and I have been advised by a senior banker from the City. I have looked at the accounts of European Home Retail and many questions arise. I note that a senior Treasury Minister has said that he does not understand why people use savings clubs like Farepak. He would not say that if he had grown up in the urban community in which I did, which had something called a menoge—a corruption of the phrase "ménage à vingt"—which was an arrangement between 20 people. My grandmother ran them. Poor people would put their money in trust to one person, and every 20 weeks they got a chance to spend it. That is how I got my school uniforms when I was younger. Those people did not trust banks and they did not feel that they would be able to go the month without spending the money on food for the family, but they had to have some form of saving for Christmas or other occasions—like the Farepak victims. People were used to trusting arrangements to which they paid their money without receiving interest. The menoges were collective, supportive clubs, and the savings clubs grew out of them.

Pete Wishart: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must show the same level of generosity and big-heartedness that many individuals and communities and some financial institutions have shown in donating to the emergency relief fund by match-funding it when it closes this week?

Michael Connarty: I totally disagree. The money lost is not the responsibility of the Government. There are some questions about the Government's responsibility for allowing the company to continue to trade when it was clearly not even able to maintain its membership of the association that would have guaranteed people's money. The horse bolted down the road while the Financial Services Authority's stableman was asleep at the door. The FSA is great at introducing regulations after a crisis has occurred.
	The scandal would not have happened if the Conservative Government had not abolished section 332 of the Companies Act 1948, which would have prevented the company from being able to trade— [Interruption.] Hon. Members can look it up. If that provision had not been removed, the company would not have been able to trade.
	Rather than appointing Brian Pomeroy, the chair of the financial inclusion task force, to consider why people use such savings clubs, we should appoint Suzy Hall, who is recognised as the spokesperson and organiser of the Unfairpak.co.uk campaign. She spoke at a meeting in Falkirk on Sunday, organised by the council, which I attended.
	The most pressing issue is helping the Farepak victims. The suggestion by Findel plc, which bought out Farepak and Kleeneze, is that all the top 350 companies in Britain should give £50,000, which would put £17.5 million into the fund. Opposition Members who have some influence should talk to some of their friends in the City about that.
	Every assistance should also be given to the inquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry. We should also have an urgent inquiry by the Treasury Committee into EHR, Farepak and Kleeneze and their banking arrangements. That inquiry should subpoena and question on camera Hugh McMillan, the head of credit risk at HBOS, Alistair Webster, the main executive, Eddie Morrison, who is responsible for relationship banking, and Peter Cummings, to whom they all report. They should be asked what happened to the money that Farepak savers put in. I put that question to Mr. O'Riordan from the bank when I met him. I asked whether that money went through EHR to keep Kleeneze running so that it could be sold off as a going concern and the money returned to HBOS. Those people must answer those questions before a Select Committee.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I showed some latitude to the hon. Gentleman because, although the terms of the amendment are quite wide, they were being stretched a long way to include the latter part of his remarks. I say that for the benefit of the House as a whole. Hon. Members must have regard not to the Queen's Speech as a whole, but to the amendment on the Order Paper.

Michael Gove: I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) on the thoughtful way in which he tackled the issue of poverty. I appreciate the way in which his personal and constituency experiences informed his comments.
	With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wish to address my remarks to an issue that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has called the central challenge for Government and his Department—the funding and financing of terrorist activity. I took the liberty earlier of checking with the Clerk to the Table Office to ensure that my comments on this subject would fall within the precincts of the amendment, and I was assured that I was at liberty to discuss some specific questions. The Chancellor also stressed in his own remarks the importance of dealing with terrorist funding and financing as part of the Treasury's basket of responsibilities.
	On 10 October, the Chancellor said that it was
	"upon meeting and overcoming the challenge of global terrorism that all else we value depends".
	In his speech on that date he outlined the Treasury's role as the lead Department for our security. He specifically mentioned that the Treasury would have two responsibilities—interdicting terrorist financing and tackling the forces that encourage the separatism, extremism and isolation on which terrorism thrives.
	In his speech, the Chancellor congratulated himself on
	"the most comprehensive and expeditious asset freeze the Treasury has ever undertaken".
	But what exactly has the Treasury been able to seize from those suspected of involvement in terrorist activity? The true figure, as revealed following patient detective work by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), amounts to only £476,000 since 2002. That figure compares with some $200 million frozen by the American authorities. The Treasury's effort is tiny by comparison. Its dragnet has caught minnows, not sharks. It has also had significant holes in it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) pointed out, Abu Hamza—now, happily, convicted of terrorist offences—whose assets were supposed to have been frozen, was able to transfer ownership of his home to his son, allowing his family to play the property market. How could Abu Hamza do that? It was because of a loophole that the Government had failed to address. The initial order, introduced in 2001, froze only funds, not assets. No change was made in that order until last month, just as the news of Abu Hamza's situation was breaking in the newspapers. The loophole existed for four years and allowed someone convicted of terrorist offences to play the property market with public money.
	Another area of profound concern was reported in  The Sunday Telegraph yesterday. The European Union has stepped in to prevent the details of bank transfers being released to the US authorities when they fear that those transfers may materially affect terrorist activity. The European Union has ruled that privacy must come before security, but it will allow those same bank transfers to be scrutinised for taxation purposes. The Chancellor, in his speech on 10 October, stressed that he and Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, would take proactive steps to ensure that no regulation came between us and our security. Why are those EU regulations still in place, despite the Chancellor's brave words? In those three specific areas, the Treasury has not dealt effectively with terrorist financing, despite the Chancellor's putting the subject at the centre of his pattern of activities for the year.
	In his speech, the Chancellor raised other real concerns about the way in which terrorism thrives as a result of the activity of extremist organisations. In a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre earlier this year, the Prime Minister pointed out that the threat that we face is not just physical but ideological. That ideological threat is rooted in the particular twisting of Islam known as Islamism, which has been propagated by organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. That organisation has a UK branch known as the Muslim Association of Britain, and it is the UK branch of the organisation known in the Palestinian territories as Hamas. However, there has been no effective scrutiny by the Government or the Treasury of the Muslim Association of Britain's activities or funding.
	Crucially, the Muslim Association of Britain and its most prominent spokesman, Dr. Azzam Tamimi, now run the Finsbury Park mosque for which Sheikh Abu Hamza was previously responsible. Abu Hamza may be behind bars, and his assets may, at last, have been effectively frozen, but the mosque from which he preached hatred is now under the control of a man who was responsible for praising suicide bombing, and who has said that the state of Israel will eventually be destroyed and replaced by an Islamic state. The Government allowed that to happen on their watch, and they also allowed the Muslim Association of Britain to play a key role in the Government's own watchdog body for mosques, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. How can we accept the Government's claims that they take terrorism seriously when they are putting foxes in charge of the chicken coop?
	I mentioned Hamas. Following brave reporting by John Ware, the investigative reporter who works for "Panorama", one charity in this country was identified as having direct links with Hamas and terrorist fundraising. That charity is Interpal, which had been investigated by the Charity Commission. However, John Ware's report revealed new, troubling details, including the fact that one of Interpal's trustees, Mr. Ibrahim Hewitt, was appointed by the Government to their "Preventing Extremism Together" taskforce. Mr. Ware and others have asked the Charity Commission to look again at Interpal's operation, and the operation of other charities that are linked with terrorism.
	We await a comprehensive report—the Chancellor has promised it three times, but he has still not delivered it—that assesses the way in which charities have been used as a shield to promote terrorist financing and fundraising. Will the Minister ensure that, when the report is eventually published, the Charity Commission is given new powers to investigate proactively groups that spread terror and proselytise for extremism, under the cloak of charitable activity?
	To be fair to the Government, two charities have been interdicted following action by the Treasury: Sanabel and al-Haramain. Those two charities are significant, because both are Saudi-based. In the United States Senate, the senior senator for New York, the democrat Charles Schumer, pointed out that Saudi-sponsored activity was responsible for the hijacking of moderate Islam and the spread of fundamentalist doctrine in schools, mosques and prisons. In a submission to the US Senate, Steven Emerson has pointed out the way in which organisations use the cloak of charitable activity to proselytise for an extremist agenda. In many cases, they choose to work through the direct funding of mosques.
	There are some 1,600 mosques in Britain, most of them exemplary houses of instruction that provide spiritual nourishment to our fellow citizens, and that teach them in a tradition that all of us would think admirable. However, there are mosques—some with direct relationships with Saudi Arabia—that do not cleave to the moderate mainstream path taken by the majority of British Muslims. I shall mention two of them. One subject of concern is the East London mosque, which is one of the largest in Britain. Its president, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari, is the chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, but the speaker invited to open the mosque, Sheikh al-Sudais, had preached sermons in his native Saudi Arabia in which he described Jewish people as pigs and monkeys. He has called Hindus idol-worshippers to whom it would be wrong to speak sweetly. That is an example of Saudi influence raising profound concerns.
	An even more profound concern arises in connection with the plans, in east London, for the erection of the largest mosque—indeed, the largest house of worship—in the country. It is intended to accommodate between 40,000 and 70,000 worshippers, and it is estimated that it will cost between £100 million and £300 million. The mosque, which is being built by an organisation called Tablighi Jamaat, raises profound concerns, not least because that organisation has been described by French intelligence as an "antechamber of fundamentalism". Two of the 7/7 bombers had direct links with the Tablighi Jamaat mosque in Dewsbury. Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, had links with the organisation, as did John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban. How can an organisation that, according to the Charity Commission, records an income of just £500,000 a year, afford to build a mosque that will cost anything between £100 million and £300 million?
	It is my contention that we need a thorough and bipartisan investigation by the House into the foreign funding of extremism in this country. We can learn a lot from the United States, and the way in which the Senate used its investigative tools to work out exactly how a noble religion is being subverted by extremists. I am sure that the Chancellor is sincere in his determination to combat terrorism and root out the extremism that sustains it, but unless he shows a greater degree of urgency in dealing with the problem, and a greater attention to detail when matters are brought before Ministers, and unless he empowers the Charity Commission and other agencies to use proactive investigatory powers, I am afraid that we will always be on the back foot in one of the most vital battles of our time.

Jon Cruddas: By contrast with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), in this Queen's Speech debate I want to contest the terms of our debate on security. I will talk about economic elements affecting security and insecurity in communities such as mine. I want to discuss whether the new, independent statistical system will give us a new entry point into issues such as the massive demographic change in poorer parts of urban communities. That change is driven by movements of people, especially A8 European nationals. My comments will be in contrast to the calibration of the security agenda in the Queen's Speech, which is driven by the terror agenda, migration, and issues to do with criminality.
	Anyone who went to my constituency and asked about security and insecurity would get stuck into three issues straight away. The first is housing insecurity and pressures on the demand for low-cost social housing units. The second is labour market insecurities, and in particular the perceived race to the bottom caused by the deregulation of labour markets, and driven by patterns of migration. The third is access to quality health care, partly as a consequence of primary care cuts. However, the overriding element contributing to insecurity is the community's inability to comprehend the sheer velocity of change caused by patterns of migration to our borough. That raises big issues of public policy, resource allocation and the economics of the Queen's Speech, as set out today.
	I am interested in the independent statistical system, and I am keen to raise a few issues on class, migration and race. I regularly ask the Office for National Statistics what the population of my borough is, and it regularly tells me that it is 164,000, and has been since 2001. Our borough has the lowest-cost housing in Greater London, and as a consequence it exerts a magnetic pull, in terms of migration within the city's boundaries. In addition—this is a classic hallmark of patterns of migration to cities—migrant communities have moved into the lowest-cost housing market in search of low-cost housing. The cumulative effect is that the population is growing dramatically, but that occurs off the radar of public policy-making, which remains attached to an increasingly out-of-date census formula.
	The only statistical series that begin to catch such movements of people are the education rolls. From 2003 until 2005-06, the story shows that the white population in our community was dropping by about 3 or 4 per cent. a year. If there was a pro rata effect across the whole borough, whose population is between 160,000 and 170,000, the change in ethnicity—from white, indigenous English to black African families—would be between 4,000 and 5,000. Analysis of the education rolls shows an expansion in the head count of the population, too.
	There are massive movements of people in terms of both the qualitative make-up of the community and the total head count, yet the state is attached to a census formula that gives a completely different picture of the communities we represent. That has huge implications in communities such as mine, where there are enduring inequalities in health and access to public services, as well as long-term legacies owing to poverty and social immobility. The population is growing faster in real terms than the state is refinancing public services. As a consequence, we can make a strong case that things are in decline in real terms, because the social wage is in decline, especially when analysed alongside the effects of patterns of migration and labour market deregulation.
	It will be interesting to see whether the independent statistical system will be able to grapple with such issues in future. I realise that there are the beginnings of a central locus of analysis in relation to the future comprehensive spending review, but I want to throw out a few questions about how we can reconcile that with the real-time demographic picture, especially in the poorer urban communities that take the strain of massive population flows. How can we adjust public policy making so that we go with the grain of those movements rather than simply offering diminishing returns in our understanding of, and investment in, those communities, because of the increasing rupture between the formal apparatus of state decision making and the reality of population flows?
	ONS analysis shows that the rate of population growth at present is the fastest since the 1960s, despite residents leaving at record levels. By June 2005, the population of the UK was about 60.2 million; in the preceding year, growth was 0.6 per cent., or 375,000 net. In cities such as London, the poorest communities take the strain of such increases. The global challenge in respect of migration posed in the Queen's Speech is to deal with those issues in a public policy agenda that explicitly tries to confront patterns of inequality and the problems of social cohesion. Only on the basis of modern, real-time demography can we begin to deal with such issues through investment in education or health, or helping local authorities in their strategy for managing changes in the community to ensure social cohesion.
	I shall give some examples of the effects of labour market movements to show why such policies would be important in helping communities such as mine. As I said, there has been a massive change in the qualitative make-up of the population, as well as the total number. Many new residents are employed by employment agencies, which has caused real pressures at the bottom of the labour market. At one of my surgeries a few weeks ago, the first case involved some residents who came to see me about east European gang workers being paid £15 a day on a public contract. As that is substantially below the minimum wage, they were rightly concerned about the consequential effects on broader labour market conditions in the area.
	The fifth case involved a roofer whose hourly wage rate had dropped £2.50 in six months. The penultimate case that night was a guy who wanted to know what I could do about the shed opposite his house. I found out that the person had put a cooker in the shed at the bottom of his garden and rented it out to eight east European guys who were hot-bedding in it. They were in a labour gang employed on contracts in the local community.
	I raise those issues to show how demographic movements have consequential effects on other forms of economic activity in communities such as mine, especially in the labour market. Putting that alongside the consumption of public services can create real, material tensions in respect of the allocation of resources and labour market competition in some of the more challenging parts of cities such as London.
	Such material conditions account for part of the rise of the far right, which seeks to pit community against community. However, the real issue is whether a mature debate on the Queen's Speech and the Government's economic strategy can actually build a real-time demographic picture of communities such as mine, and offer both resource allocation solutions that anticipate population movements and a labour market strategy that stops the contemporary race to the bottom, which creates and fuels real tensions.
	When my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk talked about the temporary workers directive and raised concerns about the blocking minority in Brussels, he was right on the money. The type of policy remedy that I suggested is critical to supply different footings for the labour market economy to neutralise the seductive messages of the far right, which argues that competition at the bottom of the labour market is racialising the community owing to the threat posed by A8 migrants. I am, of course, aware of some of the debates in the European Community about the 12-month threshold, but such policy initiatives are critical if the Government are to be proactive in choking off the downward pressures at the bottom of the labour market, which fuel difficulties and tensions in communities such as mine, creating a breeding-ground for political extremism.

Jeremy Browne: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman's constituency has a different social make-up from mine, but in my constituency there are severe labour shortages, especially in lower-paid jobs in agriculture, which would be hard to fill were we not to have migrant workers from the newer parts of the EU. Prices would rise and productivity would fall if they were no longer able to work in my area. There are social tensions, but how can we address them without losing economic benefits?

Jon Cruddas: I am not arguing against migration; I am trying to stimulate debate about the role of the state in helping communities to adjust, especially those that take disproportionate strain because they have the longest legacies of poverty and inequality.
	The issues are difficult, especially given the velocity of change over the past couple of years, but it cannot be beyond the collective wit of the state to provide remedies—if we acknowledge the issues in the first place. That returns us to questions about the statistical material on which public policy responses are built and the use of contemporary census data to develop a picture that allows us to build appropriate policy remedies for the modern cities and communities that we represent. I do not know whether that is feasible or possible, especially given the sheer speed of change in areas such as mine in global cities such as London, where population movement is extraordinary. I simply raise the issues to inform debate when we discuss the remit of the statistical machinery—the issues it is trying to confront and the solutions it is trying to provide. That is not necessarily beyond the capacity of the state, even though I do not underestimate the significance of the problems.
	We have to be prepared to deal with the problems and confront some of the material conditions, such as the concerns in my community that demographic changes are occurring in a zero-sum game in terms of resource allocation. Unless we can create a more positive-sum environment and remove material concerns about resource allocation, we shall not be able materially to deal with the far right causes that are so profound in communities such as mine. I wanted to raise those issues so that we can return to them at a later date.

Charles Kennedy: It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas). From earlier exchanges in a different context this year, I well know the knowledge and insight that he brings to his own area, particularly in respect of the pernicious activities of the far right. That was acknowledged recently when one of  The Spectator awards went in his direction, largely because of the quality of insight and personal courage that he brought to his activities, which was very much on display again this evening. As he has had one happy competitive moment of late, who knows, he might have another in due course. We shall watch with interest and wish him well. That, however, is certainly outwith the remit of the Queen's Speech, so I shall not stray on to it.
	As I listened to the opening exchanges with the Chancellor earlier this afternoon, I reflected on the fact that what has generally been regarded as a not overly heavy Queen's Speech this year leaves a fair amount of flexibility for changes at the top of the Government during this parliamentary Session. My mind could not help but go back to discussions that the Prime Minister and I have had, at his behest, over the past few years. The Prime Minister tried to dissuade me from Liberal Democrat support for a referendum on the single European currency, which he thought was a daft idea. When that was put on the shelf, he tried to dissuade me from Liberal Democrat support for a referendum on the proposed new European constitution. At that time, I was told, there was no way either Schröder or Chirac would touch such proposition with a bargepole, yet, lo and behold, a few weeks later they did.
	It was pointed out that advance announcements from the Government were destabilising as they led to paralysis. The irony was that the Prime Minister's somewhat premature decision on the night of the Hartlepool by-election to tell the country that he did not intend to be around, even if he won the general election, itself generated a fair amount of paralysis, which will be overcome only when the change takes place.
	In the context of that transition, I want to put one or two pleas to the likely next head of the Government, the present Chancellor, in the light of the proposals in the Queen's Speech. We hope that he will look at a few things afresh if he takes over the helm of government, not least the social justice agenda.
	There has been overall acknowledgement in some of the less heated moments of today's debate that over a remarkable decade in office and fairly benign macroeconomic circumstances, some credit is due to the Chancellor for helping to influence that—

Jim Devine: Come and join us!

Charles Kennedy: Certainly not; I am very happy where I am.
	Leaving aside the small issue of the colossal cost of Iraq—I do not intend to address that this evening, having done so only recently—the Chancellor has been spared, as we have been spared, some of the big economic shocks that derailed previous Labour and Conservative Governments. Yes, the oil price has been a difficulty, but we have not had a devaluation. Yes, conflict has cost the country a great deal of money, but overall the economy has been quite benign, comparatively speaking, and quite successful. Against that backdrop, we can have a sensible debate, even if I notice that Lord Rees-Mogg has turned his attention in his column today to what we do when there is a collapse in the housing market. I have not studied his article in detail, but if that is the force of his argument and if he is predicting that, the Chancellor can probably be well assured—given the predictive qualities of that column over many years on many issues—that it is not going to happen.
	Given the quite encouraging economic backdrops and the Chancellor's good intentions for social justice—I do not deny his good intentions on these broad policy strata—there have nevertheless been many disappointments. Without any shadow of a doubt, one such is the continuing problem of tuition fees and the disincentive effect that common sense suggests it must be having on the aspirations of some young people from lower income backgrounds who want to go on to tertiary education. What I find so ironic is that even when Ministers have justified their policy for England and Wales, they have readily acknowledged that they have not begun to attack the broader funding dilemmas of the UK university sector as a whole, which were well touched on by the chairman of the Conservative policy review, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). It seems to me that we are not solving the big problem, while loading in many disincentives for people who cannot be helped. I hope that in the different devolved context, the Chancellor might yet come to see the merits of the policy in Scotland. Indeed, my party colleagues are now pledging in the context of next May's elections to take the more generous policy even further forward, as it acts well.
	My second plea relates to some of the ironies of social policy affecting our older citizens. The demography is such that we know that we now have a more active older citizenry, yet the complexities of the operation of pension policy and tax and benefits policy mean that the physical well-being and good will of old people is not being utilised as much as it could be. As we look to developments in social policy for the rest of this Parliament, I hope that we will take account of the opportunities that exist. It seems a shame that greater social flexibility does not lead to more flexibility whereby older people in their 50s and 60s may dip in and out of the labour market. Perhaps they no longer want or have to work full-time, but want to work part-time without the system operating against their interests. Much more could be done.
	Over a number of years, Government and parliamentary rhetoric from all parties has seemed to encourage use of the experience that older people bring to the labour market, but what else are we doing? We seem to be presiding over the wholesale demolition of local sub-post offices, and for which group of people does that cause the most anxiety? What disincentive is that for active citizens who do not have the access that they would wish to enjoy to a wide range of services? More imaginative policies could help, but they are not adequately dealt with in the Queen's Speech.
	At the other end of the age spectrum, the Government have pledged to look again at the system of child support. I am sure that we are all often or occasionally asked the question of what vote we most regret having cast during our time in Parliament. In my case, it is a vote that I never cast—none of us did. There was an all-party agreement that the principle behind the establishment of the Child Support Agency was a good one. Without any rigour being brought to bear on the matter, we ended up with something that entered into the realms of retrospection and became more of a cash cow for the Treasury, rather than tackling what it was supposed to tackle—the social injustice of, mainly, men not being around and failing to live up to their financial responsibilities to the women and children whom they had probably walked away from. It was a terrible error in which all three UK parties were complicit, and it has gone on under successive Governments.
	I hope that the problem can be tackled more successfully this year, although, as we have argued for a number of years, it is hard to understand how meaningful reform of the CSA, so long as it continues to be structured as the CSA, will lead to the solution that we all want. Would it not be better to put it properly within the Inland Revenue system, rather than continuing with a free-standing agency that no amount of tampering and tinkering can improve? Perhaps the Minister could indicate in his reply just where the Government's thinking is up to, because even the Government have begun to allude to the fact that they might want to scrap the CSA completely. I do not know what the detail of the proposal in the Queen's Speech will prove to be.

Philip Hammond: The Liberal Democrats have suggested placing responsibility for the collection of child maintenance with the Inland Revenue on many occasions, but is not the problem that the Inland Revenue, as currently structured with the pay-as-you-earn system, does not have a way to attribute individual payments in-year to an individual and can reconcile those payments only at the end of the financial year?

Charles Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. That is one of the first things that we have run into in developing our policy over the years. However, two layman judgments have always weighed on my mind when considering the problem. First, for God's sake, nothing could be worse than what we have at the moment, as we all know from our constituency surgery experience. Secondly, with computerisation and integration available, although there are problems, surely it cannot be beyond the wit of civil servants and Ministers to find a way to reconcile such things, so that payments can be worked out properly later. Perhaps that is a triumph of hope over experience—perhaps I am the eternal optimist in such things—but we can do an awful lot better than we have been doing over the past few years.
	I want to make a further point about the argument that the Chancellor was addressing in his remarks on the purpose and the ends of fair taxation and expenditure. I do not think that in our political debate we should be embarrassed into shying away from the principle, as I see it, that a tax system should be progressive and that we should not resile from redistribution as a genuine and authentic aim of such a tax system—provided, of course, that we are in favour of a society in which those who are able to be entrepreneurial, to take risks and to generate considerable wealth are not held back and the state does not forget through the tax system those who do not find themselves in that position.
	My final point relates simply to pensions, which have been referred to during the debate, and wider environmental and energy matters, about which the Chancellor spoke. There is no doubt in my mind that we must contrast the way in which the Government have gone about pension reform—by setting up something under Adair Turner that carried conviction and credibility and that helped to begin to sow the seeds of all-party consensus that probably even a couple of years ago would have seemed like a mission impossible—with the way in which our future energy needs, particularly the civil nuclear role, has been handled, with no proper independent evaluation and no sense of confidence in how the issue is to be taken forward. In fact, in a rather unexpected speech to the CBI annual conference dinner, the Prime Minister more or less said that he had made up his mind and that that was essentially it.
	I do not know how, within one Government, there can be such a good example of a complex policy that goes beyond party politics being carried forward sensibly, while an issue that also fits all those difficulties is bounced in a way that ends up satisfying no one. That is why, with the likely transition at the top of the Government when this pause in normal political proceedings ends, I hope that we shall revisit some of the big issues and opportunities that, with the underpinning of a fairly benign economy—under this Government or a successor Government—we can do so much more about in achieving the socially just society to which we all aspire.

Helen Goodman: I am most grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the Queen's Speech debate. May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), who gave a wide-ranging speech in his usual witty and charming manner? I will concentrate much more narrowly on tackling climate change while maintaining our competitiveness. Those two things are often presented as conflicting and contradictory, but I hope to show that we can achieve both.
	Something that astonished me about the Opposition amendment was the statement that they
	"regret the absence of strong and binding measures to tackle climate change and environmental degradation".
	It seems to me that arguably one of the most important measures in the Gracious Speech is the climate change Bill. Nothing could contrast more starkly than the weighty Stern report as the fashion-statement approach to environmental issues displayed by Opposition Members. The report is obviously right to begin with a statement of the ethical and scientific basis of the problems, but no one has really said such things more clearly or more precisely than John Locke in 1690:
	"Each man is entitled to the fruits of his labour, as long as as much and as good is left for the next."
	On science, the Stern report has made it very clear that we are now up against an exceptionally tight timetable. We have only 10 to 15 years to stabilise and reduce emissions. That is particularly important in my constituency. At the rural end of my constituency in Upper Teesdale, unique biodiversity exists that has survived from the last ice age. Plants such as the spring gentian only grow in the north Pennines area of outstanding natural beauty. Those plants and that biodiversity will be completely destroyed by global warming. It is, of course, worth noting that while humans might have strategies for mitigation and adaptation, animals cannot be expected to have strategies for adaptation.
	On the vexed issue of targets, which have been much discussed, it is quite clear that annual targets to reduce emissions are not practical. I understand that five-year targets have been proposed because they tie in very neatly with the Kyoto machinery, but we have now taken to holding four-year Parliaments, so it seems to me that, to achieve proper accountability, we need to have three to four-year targets for our climate change objectives.
	Those of us who are concerned about the environment are frequently portrayed as romantic impossibilists, but Stern has shown that there is an economic case for action. At the other end of my constituency in Bishop Auckland, we have a manufacturing base that is already changing shape and showing how a new green model for the economy can operate. We have a monthly farmers' market in Barnard Castle, where people can buy and eat local and seasonal food without the burden of air miles. We have the Farmway farmers' co-operative, which is the first link in the supply chain for biofuels that goes through to Teesside. The Glaxo plant, which is the most energy efficient one in the world, has two windmills to supply its electricity. CAA Roofing has developed a new solar wall system to trap the sun's heat for buildings. Teescraft Engineering is considering constructing wind turbines. Thorn Lighting has just decided to build a completely new plant. It has a research and development programme with Durham university for low organic lighting. That will involve the biggest change in the way that we light our houses since the invention of the light bulb. All those examples show that greening the economy can create new jobs.
	The Government's policy of supporting science and encouraging links between industry and academia is absolutely vital. The Chancellor's announcement of the energy technologies institute is one of the most forward-looking policies that we could have. We need to do more to simplify planning and building regulations, to reform the tax system and to provide one-stop advice. But the examples demonstrate that a cross-government approach is vital to ensuring that objectives lead to action.
	When we look across the board at the competitiveness of the economy, we need to consider those sectors with high energy use where the picture is obviously trickier. There are two examples in my constituency: a glass recycling plant, Potters-Ballotini, and Wienerberger's Eldon brickworks. Both have had serious problems in the past two years because of high energy prices. In fact, both have had to close furnaces for several months at a time. Excellent chapters in the Stern report look at how we should address the needs of heavy industry. Table 11A is quite compendious and sets out statistics for UK production sectors in 123 different areas and shows that glass and bricks are 10 times more carbon intensive than the financial sector. However, I do not take the lesson from that that everybody can or should become a banker.
	The position of heavily energy intensive industries is a clear demonstration of the need for an internationally co-ordinated approach to climate change. There will be no environmental benefit if relatively efficient UK plant moves overseas where environmental standards are lower and from which transport costs are high. The Stern report suggests international trading agreements by sector, and I agree. Obviously, we do not want to impede major technological progress such as that by Thorn Lighting that I described earlier, but exporting all our heavy industry is unlikely to be the best environmental solution.
	Despite the 574 pages of the Stern report, there are further pieces of analysis that it would be helpful for us to have. The first is a comparison across the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of carbon intensity disaggregated by sector. Only with that can we set demanding and realistic targets. At the moment, the UK scores well overall, but that is because of the big contribution made by the City of London. However, we should not use that to have, for example, a relatively inefficient household sector.

Brooks Newmark: I support the hon. Lady's point that there should be target, but does she not believe that there should be annual targets for CO2 emissions for which the Government are accountable?

Helen Goodman: The debate about annual targets has been fully aired and the argument against them is that there would be too many blips and ups and downs. The weather could have an impact. That is why I would like targets to be set on a three to four-year basis.
	Analysis of the impact on the exchange rate would also be helpful. When we got North sea oil, we thought that that was tremendous, but some problems were created because the exchange rate shot up. There is a risk that the exchange rate could also shoot up because this country is relatively carbon efficient.
	One interesting idea that is being floated in Europe relates to a proposal on how to deal with international free-riders. There must be real incentives at an international level for countries to co-operate. It is worth our while considering introducing, or threatening to introduce, penalties on those who refuse to join proper carbon trading schemes. In effect, the proposal is for an extension of the generalised system of preferences that ties trade preferences to standards for labour and human rights.
	We must face the fact that, whatever ideological or sentimental attachments people have to the current regimes, we have not so far been successful in getting all the large emitters to co-operate responsibly at the international level. Now we are on a much tighter timetable than we were previously. That also highlights the need for the international institutional machinery that tackles the environment to have the same status as the World Trade Organisation.
	The second policy instrument that is vital for heavy industry and our overall success in meeting our climate change objectives is a proper costing of transport—aviation, marine and freight. We must include the external costs of transport, and this is not just about kiwi fruit. Such a costing will also affect the relative competitiveness of heavy industry across the world and it will change the current bias against local production.
	The aspect of transport that is most discussed at the moment is aviation and the phenomenon of cheap flights. Those of us who argue that that should be tackled are often criticised as if we were saying that people on low incomes should not have proper summer holidays. Of course, that is not true at all. We need to knock that myth on the head now. Last year, 10 per cent. of flights were taken by people in the bottom 25 per cent. of the income distribution table, but the top 25 per cent. of the population took, on average, six return flights a year. That is completely unsustainable. We cannot carry on with a situation in which people begin to get the idea that it is their right to have six return flights a year.
	I want, however, to end on a more positive note. Putting a proper price on carbon will have similar effect on the economy to the significant oil price rises of the 1970s and 1980s.

Kelvin Hopkins: My hon. Friend is making a very fine speech; I agree with what she says. Does she accept that massive investment in rail freight would make a serious difference given that rail freight produces one twelfth of the emissions of road freight?

Helen Goodman: What my hon. Friend says makes complete sense. We need to reinvest in public transport, which is why the Bill mentioned in the Gracious Speech that will extend the rights of old age pensioners to free bus travel is also a helpful contribution.
	As I was saying, we need to put a proper price on carbon, and the effect will be similar to the oil prices hikes of the 1970s and 1980s. At first, when they occurred, everyone felt that they would be a complete disaster. However, in the end, the western economies benefited significantly and became far more efficient.
	In 1990, I was sent by what is now the Department for International Development to Prague to advise the transitional Government in Czechoslovakia on its energy crisis. It was facing a situation rather like the one in Ukraine last year. I found an economy that had been protected from the real costs of energy. It was hopelessly sluggish and old fashioned. Forests were dying because of acid rain and every building that one went into—whether a private home or an office—was completely stifling. There were no thermostats, so one could not switch the heating off. Industry also used out-of-date stock. By introducing proper energy pricing, all that has changed. The Czech and Slovak Republics now have dynamic economies. They are growing modern democracies and full participants in the European Union.
	Being green is often a synonym for being naive and perhaps rather foolish. However, I hope that, with the Government's programme of action set out in this Queen's Speech, being green will, in fact, be about the rejuvenation of the British economy.

David Gauke: It is a great pleasure to have an opportunity to speak in today's debate. In particular, I would like to address the rather topical issue of our taxation system and the relationship it has with productivity. I say that it is topical in part because of the report produced by the CBI this morning. The survey looked at business's attitude to taxation in this country. I am afraid that the picture is not a happy one. According to the survey, 70 per cent. of senior business men who responded believe that the UK is a poorer international business location than it was in 2001. Some 75 per cent. say that the corporate tax regime is worse than it was in 2001 and 19 per cent. of UK companies are considering moving their headquarters abroad, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) mentioned earlier today.
	In 2000, we had the 10th highest corporation tax rate among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. It is now the 18th highest. However, rates—particularly corporation tax rates—are not the be all and end all of taxation. It is the habit of the Government, and of the Chancellor in particular, to quote the fact that corporation tax rates have fallen since 1997. That ignores two points. According to a recent World Bank report corporation tax constitutes, on average, only 36 per cent. of the total amount paid by businesses. These things have to be looked at relatively. There was a time, say in 1997, when our business taxation rates were lower than the OECD average, but that is no longer the case, because our competitors are cutting taxes whereas we are going in the other direction. That is why we are rapidly approaching the point where the tax burden in this country will be greater than that in Germany. That puts us at a competitive disadvantage, at least compared with where we were only a few years ago.
	As I mentioned earlier, rates are only one aspect of taxation; there is also tax complexity. The Government have a poor record in that area and there is nothing in the Queen's Speech as such that will address that. We wait to see whether the Finance Bill in this parliamentary Session will attempt to address it.
	Returning to the CBI survey, 95 per cent. of business people say that the tax system should be simplified. That hardly comes as a surprise. However, the external experts have been damning when it comes to the position that we face in this country. KPMG said:
	"The general trend for the UK's tax system in recent years has been towards more complexity and less certainty, which is gradually making the UK a less competitive location for industry".
	The British Chambers of Commerce said:
	"It is clear that the system has become progressively more complex over a number of years, driven by the relentless increase in tax legislation...The complexity of the tax system has a real impact on UK firms' ability to compete in an increasingly competitive market".
	The Chartered Institute of Taxation follows in a similar vein:
	"Over the past several years there has been a series of waves of complex ill thought out tax legislation that purports to counteract tax avoidance but, in practice, goes much further than that...Certainly the UK's competitive position has been undermined."
	It is always difficult to quantify complexity, but there are one or two rough and ready measures that are worth looking at. One is the length of handbooks. In 1997, Tolley's  Yellow Tax Handbook of the British tax code was 4,555 pages long; it is now 9,841. In a report published a week or so ago, the World Bank noticed that, among the major economies, only India has a longer tax code than the UK.
	Another rough and ready measure is Finance Acts. I say this with some feeling having served on the Committee on the previous Finance Bill —[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I am grateful for those comments, which I hope will be recorded in  Hansard. One hears stories from the old hands about how they stayed up all night considering Finance Bills in the 1980s. Those Finance Bills were only 157 pages long.

Jim Devine: As a result of Farepak's collapse, hundreds of thousands of hard-working families have, in effect, seen Christmas cancelled. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Labour Government of 1948 introduced the Companies Bill, section 332 of which would have protected those families? However, the Act of 1985, which he is making light comment on, destroyed the right of those people to get their money back.

David Gauke: First, I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Companies Act 1985. I am referring to Finance Acts. Secondly, the sympathy of us all goes out to those who have suffered under Farepak—I am sure that he would agree that this is not a party political point—but the Government have been in place for nine years, so if there is a fault with the legislation, which I am not necessarily saying that there is, those remarks should be directed to his own Front-Bench team. I was trying to make the point that Finance Bills have grown in length substantially. Between 2000 and 2005, they were 481 pages long.
	The third assessment of complexity involves looking at the World Economic Forum, which produces a rating on these matters. Looking at the UK's global competitiveness on tax complexity, in 2004-05—not that long ago—it was 48th, but within a year it had moved to 67th. Again, there is an element of too much complexity. It is worth noting that the survey undertaken by the tax reform commission, which was commissioned by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor, showed that 60 per cent. of businesses are increasing spending on tax planning at the moment. Some 78 per cent. said that the level of tax complexity has increased in the past five years.
	There is a further issue with complexity. There are obviously the compliance costs and so on. The major concern is unpredictability and instability. When we look at the developing world and think about how it can develop further, most people consider issues such as property rights, certainty within the taxation system and so on. We do not face anything like the problems that exist in some developing world countries, but the economic point remains the same. It is bad for an economy to have an arbitrary, unpredictable taxation system. Business needs confidence to invest and the taxation system can undermine that confidence.
	Various elements make up the concerns with regard to unpredictability. First, there is the extent of the changes, to which I referred earlier. When we have large Finance Bills and there are substantial changes to taxation, year on year, that causes concern. There is also concern about the sheer level of complexity. It is difficult for businesses, even when advised by highly skilled advisers, to know what their tax liabilities are.
	There is also a concern about extra powers for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. I am thinking in particular of a recent consultation document about additional powers. PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, has made representations to the Treasury to say that it recognises the advantages of harmonising and modernising the powers of HMRC. However, it says that while harmonisation and modernisation are one thing,
	"taking the most extreme of the powers of the two former Departments"—
	by which it means the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise—
	"to create a set of powers that are far more extensive than either of the predecessor sets of powers, is something quite different and which needs to be properly justified".
	There is no doubt from the tone of the submission made by PWC that it is sceptical about that. There is also a concern—again, I can see it in documentation from PWC—about too much discretion for HMRC. It raises the concern that the Revenue was often able to manage legislation by means of such devices as frequently asked questions. That creates difficulty for business. There is no doubt that there is increasing evidence that the relationship between businesses and HMRC is deteriorating.
	I have no doubt that tax evasion must be tackled—the Government are right to try to do so—but the balance must be right. I am worried that the increased complexity that is being weighed on business is having a serious impact on it, partly due to a lack of certainty. Support for the view that businesses lack certainty in the tax system comes from today's CBI survey, which shows that 23 per cent. of the business people who responded said that the way in which their company's tax returns had been treated had declined since the creation of HMRC. Something is going wrong with the relationship between businesses and HMRC when that is happening. The Queen's Speech contained no measures to address such concerns.
	It is by no means inevitable that tax complexity should be weighed on tax complexity, although that appears to be the direction in which we are going. We should consider examples from overseas, such as from the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where there has been simplification. Those countries have looked at abolishing reliefs and lowering the actual rate.
	The Government could have considered procedural points and set out their conclusions in the Queen's Speech. The tax reform commission that my party set up examined ways in which there could be pre-Budget consultation on tax measures. It also considered the establishment of an office of tax simplification and the possibility of Finance Bills being examined by a Joint Committee to make use of some of the expertise of the House of Lords. I do not particularly advocate the last proposal because it would give rise to constitutional concerns, but we should use greater expertise to try to tackle the situation, because complexity and uncertainty are creating a great deal of worries.
	I have mentioned before, including during the consideration of last Session's Finance Bill, the impact on our tax law of decisions taken by the European Union and, specifically, the judgments of the European Court of Justice. Last week, the ECJ pulled back on excise duties. There was a great deal of publicity about the rate of excise duty that should be charged when a person from the UK ordered alcohol or cigarettes from Latvia using the internet. Against the advice of the advocates-general, the ECJ concluded that the UK rate should apply in that case. Despite the easy temptation to make remarks about cheap booze in the run-up to Christmas, I was greatly relieved that such a judgment was reached.
	Concerns have arisen about occasions on which the ECJ has waded into areas in such a way as to attack the whole integrity of the UK taxation system, especially with regard to the way in which corporation tax group relief has worked. In many respects, the ECJ is more a political body than a judicial body. Many of its judgments seem to reflect its ultimate political objective of ever closer union, as is seen from its decisions on taxation and other matters. The ECJ is also political in that it seems to have an awareness of the political pressures in member states and thus treads carefully at times—perhaps last week's decision on excise duties was an example of that.
	I am worried that there is a two-stage process. The ECJ makes it difficult for any member state to raise revenue in the way in which it would like. It is not a huge jump to go from that on to the next step of suggesting that that could be dealt with through greater harmonisation and a common tax base, as I believe Mr. László Kovács will propose at a meeting of Finance Ministers tomorrow. I am worried that the integrity of the system is being attacked at the first level and that the solution produced at the second level is essentially one of European Union tax law. That would be wrong for a number of reasons. It would further weaken any competitive advantage that we have in the UK and it would take taxation out of the democratic forum in such a way that our electorate would no longer have a say.
	I know that the Financial Secretary has heard me make similar speeches before, but I say again that I am worried that the ECJ is, to some extent, a political body so that I can increase political awareness of my concerns. I hope that the House will send out the message that it does not like our taxation system being attacked by judgments of the European Court of Justice, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to make that point again.
	Productivity is a hugely important issue in this country. We need to address the situation because recent years' productivity growth figures have not been good. The taxation system is one element of the problem, because the competitive advantages that this country built up throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s have gradually been diminished. There is no doubt that economic policies have an effect for a long time after they have been implemented. When the Chancellor was boasting about unemployment figures to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), I was struck that he resorted to saying that his achievements on unemployment tended to have taken place between May and October 1997. I cannot help thinking that the previous Government might have had something to do with that success, although I hope that I am not making a claim that is too hard to back up.
	Many economic decisions have long-lasting effects, although they are not always immediate. Long-term harm is being done to our country through our business tax system and we are no longer as competitive as we were. If we do not address the situation in this Session or soon, we will face problems.

Ian Austin: It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate and a particular pleasure to follow the speech made by the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke). We heard, as usual, a thoughtful and detailed contribution from someone for whom I have developed a great deal of respect since we were elected last year. I want to focus on three matters: the second paragraph of the Queen's Speech, which paid tribute to the stability that the Government's management of the economy has delivered; a couple of the Bills cited in the Queen's Speech; and several of the points made by the shadow Chancellor and his colleagues.
	First, on the stability of the economy, the macro-economic framework introduced by the Government has delivered growth of 26 per cent. in the nine years since 1997, compared with 15 per cent. in the nine years before 1997. Historically low mortgage rates have cut costs for the average homeowner by about £4,000 a year. Employment is at a record rate of 29 million, which is up 2.5 million since 1997. More people in my constituency are in work than at any point in our history.
	Despite those dramatic improvements, one can still see the legacy of the industrial and economic restructuring of the early 1980s, when the industries on which the black country's prosperity had been based experienced decline. When I left school in the early 1980s, Dudley had high unemployment and some 3,300 young people had been out of work for more than six months. Today, the equivalent figure is just a few hundred, although I want all young people to be in work or training. More than 1,000 youngsters are better off through the new deal.
	As we consider the next stage of our area's economic development, I am pleased that the Queen's Speech showed that we will maintain our focus on training, because skills are a crucial component of a dynamic economy. We must ensure that young people have the skills that they and the labour market need; that is particularly important for an area such as Dudley because it is the only way that those without work will be able to share in this country's prosperity. It is also, crucially, the only way my area will be able to attract the high-wage, high-skill jobs of the future.
	Secondly, having been one of those MPs who called on the Government to introduce a climate change Bill in the Queen's Speech, I am pleased that such a Bill was announced. Climate change is not only the biggest long-term threat that we face, but a great economic opportunity for areas such as mine. We need to look at how we can help manufacturers of the new green technologies—solar panels, energy-efficient boilers and wind turbines—to locate in former manufacturing areas such as the one that I represent.
	Thirdly, I want to welcome the proposals in the Queen's Speech to enable more people to move off benefit and give them the support that they need to return to work. Last week, the Opposition discussed how to deal with the problem of the poorest 10 per cent. in society. It was the latest in a long series of eye-catching initiatives to show how much the Opposition have changed. I disagree with those who say that the Opposition do not believe in anything or that they have no policies. On the contrary, it is precisely because of what they believe, because of their values, that their policies cannot work.
	Let us take last week's announcement. In his very first interview following the announcement the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), the spokesman on welfare reform, said that the solution was not "jacking up benefits" but
	"more active civil citizenship and social enterprise."
	I am as big a supporter of the voluntary sector and the social enterprise movement as anyone, and I recognise the much bigger role that they can play alongside an empowering and enabling public sector. But earlier today the shadow Chancellor attacked the Government's record on child poverty. We have tough targets to cut child poverty, but he says that they are just an aspiration, and the Opposition fought us every step of the way on those targets. They say that tax credits are a waste of money and that child support should be cut. That is because, whatever they say about the responsibility that we all have to act together collectively as a community, they will not, as a matter of ideology, do what is necessary to deliver social justice and open up opportunity to all. That is why they say that they want to tackle poverty but condemn the increases in public spending needed to tackle it as "fiscal irresponsibility".
	As we heard earlier, the Conservatives have announced the so-called proceeds of growth rule, which, whatever they say, commits them to cutting public spending year in, year out. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) complained earlier that we had not spent enough on transport infrastructure, but the Leader of the Opposition himself admitted that their policy is to spend less. He said:
	"As that money comes in let's share that between additional public spending and reductions in taxes. That is a dramatic difference. It would be dramatically different after five years of a Conservative Government."
	If that rule were in place now, spending would be £17 billion lower than the Government's plans set out in the Queen's Speech, and lower still in future.
	The Conservatives' tax report, which was also mentioned earlier, was commissioned by the shadow Chancellor and described by him as the framework for policy. Its authors went further and called for £21 billion of unfunded tax cuts. Those, if implemented, would undermine the stability of the economy mentioned in the Queen's Speech and repeat the mistakes of the past. It is impossible to argue that savings could be made on that scale without hitting hard-working low and middle income families by cutting deep into tax credits and the new deal. Perhaps that is why the Leader of the Opposition said that he wanted to replace public services for the poor with
	"a profound increase in voluntary and community support."
	It is the same old ideology of a small state and spending cuts, leaving the vulnerable relying on charity.

Andrew Selous: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that to tackle fully poverty it is necessary to work seriously against the causes of poverty in addition to providing the support of the benefits system?

Ian Austin: Of course it is important to work against the causes of poverty and to invest in skills and education. That is what this Government are trying to do, and that is what would be damaged by the Opposition's plans to cut £17 billion, £21 billion or whatever it is from public spending.

Jim Devine: When the Conservative party was in power in my constituency I worked in a primary care psychiatric unit. Unemployment was over 20 per cent.—that was real poverty. Working in the unit, I watched GPs prescribing anti-depressants such as Valium to people. If they could have prescribed a job, those people would not have been anywhere near the health service.

Ian Austin: My hon. Friend gives an eloquent description of the poverty that his constituents and those in the rest of the country had to endure during 18 years of Conservative Government, which, whatever they say about poverty today, is never condemned by Opposition Members.

Michael Gove: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Ian Austin: In a few moments.
	The Queen's Speech and the response of the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) have made it clear that the dividing line at the next election will be between progressives on this side of the House, who believe in rights and responsibilities and in strong communities supported by an enabling Government, with a strengthened voluntary sector to guarantee fairness and justice to all, and the unchanged Conservatives, who do not accept that there is collective responsibility and would cut spending, leaving the vulnerable with less support and charities stepping in to fill the gap.
	The Conservatives will not commit themselves to increasing tax credits to help the low and middle income majority in Britain. Instead the shadow Chancellor's top priority is abolishing stamp duty on share deals and handing out a £1 billion bung for those hard-pressed merchant bankers struggling to get by.
	Just at the point at which boosting skills has become more important than ever, the Conservatives want to abolish the new deal. Last week, they offered warm words to people with personal debt problems. The right hon. Member for Wokingham did not want earlier to discuss the work of the economic competitiveness policy group, which he chairs, but my understanding is that is has published plans to abolish consumer protection for mortgages, pensions, insurance and credit cards.

Michael Gove: rose—

Jim Devine: rose—

Ian Austin: I give way to my hon. Friend.

Michael Gove: Feart!

Jim Devine: I am not.
	I do not know whether my hon. Friend saw that ITN today showed correspondence from Farepak to Halifax Bank of Scotland before the share price collapsed. Farepak asked HBOS to ring-fence the money involved in this unregulated field. Sadly, HBOS wrote back saying that they would not ring-fence the money. Although HBOS may not have a legal responsibility to the individuals who have lost money, it has two days before the fund closes to shoulder its moral responsibility. Surely that is a good example of an industry in which we need more regulation. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are getting into too much detail on the Farepak matter. However important it is, it is, within the terms of the amendment, obtruding a little too far to be acceptable.

Ian Austin: I shall be brief in my response. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work that he and other Members have done on Farepak. What the whole debacle shows is that the poorest people in our society need more protection, not less.
	Time and again, as in the amendment on the Order Paper, the Opposition use moderate, compassionate language to mask traditional Tory positions. They said that the test of their economic and social policy is
	"how it helps the least advantaged in our society...the bottom 10 per cent."
	That is fine, but let us apply that test to a few policies that they have proposed.
	The shadow Chancellor was challenged today on the Opposition's plans to abolish stamp duty on share transactions. That would be worth precisely nothing to the poorest people in our society, but would be worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the richest. He was also asked about his plans to abolish inheritance tax. Again, that would be worth absolutely nothing to the poorest people in our society but worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the richest.
	I concede that allowing income tax allowance to be transferred between married couples is a bit better and not quite so regressive. Here a massive 3 per cent. of the benefit would go to the poorest 10 per cent. of families, but 1.2 million of the poorest couples would not gain a single penny. If we take together the proposals for a higher income tax allowance, a new 20p basic rate and the removal of tax credits from higher rate taxpayers, only a third of the poorest quarter of households would see any benefit at all; two thirds would not gain a penny. But every single household in the richest quarter benefits; most of them would be more than £1,000 a year better off.
	These are all Conservative proposals and every single one of them fails their own test; they benefit the richest most and the poorest least. The same old policies: tax cuts for the few, paid for by spending cuts that affect us all.
	In today's debate, the supposedly new Conservatives are talking about helping families work hard to balance work and family life, but they voted against increased maternity leave and maternity pay. They talk about skills—

Michael Gove: I am inordinately grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am a great admirer of him and of his intellect, and it seems a pity that it has been bent this evening to entirely partisan ends. Can he give me the benefit of that intellect now? Why, under this Government, has the number of people who are at 40 per cent. of median income or less increased? Why are the very poorest in our society more numerous after ten years of the Labour Government?

Ian Austin: It is partly a result of rising incomes across society as a whole, over which the Government have presided. If we look at the incomes of the poorest families—the hon. Gentleman is referring to them—their incomes have risen as well as a result of the tax credits, minimum wage, new deal and all the other measures that he and his colleagues have fought and voted against every single step of the way.
	The Conservatives talk about public services but they still want to cut them. They claim that they are committed to tackling poverty but their top priority, as we have seen, is a tax break for City traders. On all these issues, there is not a single centre-ground policy, which shows that for the Conservatives, change is entirely cosmetic. Strip away the rhetoric about change and every speech makes it clear. They do not give the details, and they will not say exactly which bits of the so-called "big state" they want to cut back. But if we look beyond the positioning, the Tories are still committed to the same old spending cuts.
	We should stop welcoming these supposed changes with nods of approval; we should start showing that there is absolutely no change at all. That will be the Tories' problem. Election success in his country is determined by who the public trust and who they think has the best answers to the future challenges. When we contrast the Tories' proposals, as we have tonight, with the new ideas from the Chancellor and his colleagues as set out in the Queen's Speech, it is clear that it is the Government who are coming up with the coherent ideas on the other new policy challenges of welfare to work, the economy and skills, climate change and public service reform.

Michael Weir: I had intended to concentrate on the work and pensions aspects of the Queen's Speech but, before doing so, I would like to make a few comments on the economic aspects.
	I noted that the Chancellor mentioned a cost of £5 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and he repeated, in a slightly different form, the assurance made by the Prime Minister some weeks ago that troops in the field would get whatever equipment they required. The problem is that troops from my constituency, from 45 Commando, are currently operating in Afghanistan and there have been reports that they are not getting all the equipment they require. There is a disconnect between what is being said in this country and what is happening on the ground. Whatever we may feel about individual operations, we would all agree that troops fighting those operations should get the equipment they need. The Government need to look seriously at this and make sure that these troops and others get the equipment they require.
	On climate change, I was interested in what the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) said and agreed with much of it. Like the hon. Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin), I took part in the campaign ably organised by Friends of the Earth for a climate change Bill in the Queen's Speech. I, too, was pleased to see that such a Bill was included, although one got the impression that it was stuck in at the last minute because of the huge build-up of support for it. It has not been particularly well thought out; indeed we have yet to see the detail of the Bill. The only thing that the Prime Minister has said so far about it is that there will not be annual targets because they are not practical. I disagree; it is important that we look at annual targets because they give a measure of how we are progressing on climate change.
	It is not beyond the wit of parliamentary draftsmen to build in a fail-safe mechanism for unforeseen circumstances, which we all accept can occur in any one year, that balances them out overall.
	The most depressing thing about the debate on the proposed Bill is that it seems to have centred so far entirely on the question of taxation: what will be taxed, how it will be taxed and who will be taxed more. Tackling climate change must go much wider than that; it must encompass all areas of Government. If we get bogged down in arguments about taxation only, the people out there who are very concerned about climate change and want to do their bit will be turned off. There are very difficult issues, but we must look at other ways of tackling climate change, and not just through taxation.
	For example, there are many ways we can look at how government works. In many areas of rural Scotland—I am sure that the same applies in rural England—services have been centralised, which means that people have to travel much more and emissions increase. This has gone on for some years in hospitals, schools and other areas. If the Government are serious about tackling climate change, we must look at reversing that process and making sure that services are near the people who wish to use them, which will reduce the amount of carbon that is required.

Brooks Newmark: I notice that the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) is here and I know how passionately he feels about the coal industry. Tax incentives can play an important role. If we give tax incentives to carbon sequestration, that will give business the encouragement to invest in carbon capture, which will support our dying coal industry.

Michael Weir: I entirely agree. I was not making the case that there should be no tax incentives, but the debate must go wider than tax. Coke sequestration is a good example. Mitsui Babcock, or Doosan Babcock as it is about to be, which is based in Renfrew, is a world leader in this field and has been putting the machinery into Chinese coal plants. Many of the new plants in China, despite what we are told, are sequestrating carbon and making a real attempt to try to come to terms with some of the climate change agenda. We need to think outside the box; all areas of Government need to think about how we tackle climate change.
	Interesting figures were released over the summer that showed that in many rural areas the carbon footprint was higher than in urban areas. The probable reason for that is that in rural areas we rely on motor cars much more because there is no alternative. We need to look at that—we cannot have a one-size-fits-all tax on motor cars and fuel—and the impact on different areas. There have to be trade-offs.
	When we talk about air miles, we must take certain things into account. Many of us are keen on fair trade goods, but many such goods travel a great distance to get to our shops. We must balance the carbon emissions of the producers of those goods against the carbon emissions of getting the goods to the markets. Serious issues need to be examined, and we need to consider rebalancing all that, rather than looking only at taxes.
	Energy is a huge issue in Scotland. I have talked on many occasions in this House about the need to examine transmission charges. Under the scheme generated by Ofgem—no pun intended—transmission charges on wind farms in the north of Scotland are much greater than any that would result from a generation facility being built in the south of England. That means that there is a disincentive for many renewable energy developments, not only wind farms but tidal facilities and, possibly, some of the coal plants, depending on where they are built. We must examine that, and how to have an energy system that delivers to our towns and cities while taking advantage of renewables. That matter should also come under the climate change Bill. I am not a supporter of nuclear power, and I do not see it as an answer. There are things that we can do on transmission charges that will begin to answer the energy equation.
	I move on to the work and pensions aspect of the Queen's Speech, particularly the Child Support Agency. If I heard the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy) correctly, he said that the Treasury regarded it as a cash cow when it was introduced. That seems to have been a serious miscalculation, as it has become a cash drain on the Treasury since.
	There is no doubt that root-and-branch reform of the CSA is necessary and that the proposals in the Queen's Speech are very welcome. All hon. Members will have filing cabinets full of cases relating to the CSA and will have torn their hair out trying to get solutions to seemingly intractable problems. The proposals on the CSA so far raise as many questions as they answer, because there is a lack of detail about what will take the CSA's place and how the transfer to the new system will be handled. I raise the point because I am fearful that if we do not get the detail right, we will just put another serious problem in place of the one that we have. We need to get this right. People have suffered from the CSA for many years, and we must put something in its place that works and delivers as it is supposed to.
	One of the proposals is to allow parties to enter into voluntary agreements, which is welcome as it would remove some of the contentious roadblocks to progress, but it is vital that the system for dealing with such agreements is robust and fair. I have raised this point several times with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during questions and have still to get answers about how this will work.
	Before the CSA's creation, there was a system in Scotland, at least, where parties could negotiate an agreement through their respective solicitors. It could then be registered on the books of council and session and would thereafter have the same force as a court decree. That was important because it allowed many issues to be sorted out in a reasonable and amicable way, but this ceased to be possible after the CSA's introduction. I invite the Ministers responsible to tell us whether it is envisaged that a new agreement will act in the same way.
	I know that many Ministers seem to have a downer on lawyers. I should declare an interest as a non-practising solicitor and member of the Law Society of Scotland, but the reason it was important to have solicitors' involvement was to ensure that each party received proper legal advice on their rights. It is not absolutely necessary for such advice to be given by solicitors in any new system, but it is essential that such agreements are entered into only after each party has had the opportunity to be fully advised on their rights; otherwise it could become a minefield and as bad as the existing system. Is the legislation intended to allow for a system whereby advice must be given prior to entering into the agreement?
	The next problem relates to a question that will inevitably arise, and which has plagued the CSA: what happens when there is a significant change in the circumstances of one of the parties to an agreement? It is essential that there is a process to allow a renegotiation or amendment to the agreement in those circumstances, just as there was, at least theoretically, in child support cases. I would be interested to know the Minister's thinking on this point. Does he envisage that there should be matters that come before a court, some sort of extra-judicial system or the replacement of the agency? Such matters might be technical, but they are important.
	I have previously raised the enforceability of such agreements with the Secretary of State and have yet to receive an answer, so I shall try again to get one by asking the Minister to address the question whether these agreements will be enforceable in the same manner as a court decree or decision of the CSA. This is an important point because inevitably some parties will not live up to the terms of an agreement that they have entered into.
	The second problem on enforceability relates to cross-border enforceability. I have encountered problems in some cases because child support has not been pursued because a party due to make payment has left the country. Even in cases where there is a treaty allowing the enforcement of decrees, it would seem that it has not been possible to enforce some child support orders. I urge the Minister, as I have previously urged the Secretary of State, to examine whether these agreements could have the same validity as a court order and be enforced in the same manner.

James McGovern: I am intrigued about how, if the hon. Gentleman's party succeeds in taking Scotland out of the UK, this cross-border rule to which he refers would apply.

Michael Weir: I am dreadfully sorry that the hon. Gentleman, a Scottish MP, does not understand that there is already a separate Scottish legal system and cross-border enforcement in the same way as there has to be cross-border enforcement in respect of any other nation. The problem he mentions does not arise, and I am sorry that he does not understand that. I thought that as a Scottish Member, he might know that there was a Scottish legal system, even in Dundee.

David Hamilton: May I refer the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) to an extremely good report produced in the previous Parliament by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions? I do not say that just because I was on that Committee, whose Chair was the former hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire.
	The report answered a number of the questions that the hon. Member for Angus raises, as well as the question about someone trying to get out of the country—there was a bar on anyone who did not make payment. They could not get out of the country because they had to come back to the third party, which was not solicitors—I would like to keep out of that matter—but the Government.

Michael Weir: That is not what happened in practice in the many cases that I have been involved in.
	The other major plank in the work and pensions proposals is pension reform. The vision of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru is different from that of the Government. On pensions, the Government have taken the route of suggesting—I would hardly class this as a promise—that it might be possible to restore the link between pensions and earnings, but that we all need to work for longer. The problem with that approach is that it does nothing to make up for the fact that pensions have fallen further and further behind since the link between pensions and earnings was first broken by the Conservatives. Restoring the link at some future date will not deal with that, which is why we have proposed a citizen's pension as the way forward.

Jim Devine: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Weir: No. In our policy paper "A Secure Retirement for All", we set out our proposals and the reasons we believe a citizen's pension was the way forward. The subsequent Turner report and the Government's response have not changed that view; we believe that it remains the best way forward. I am sure that the Government would point out all that they have done for pensions, yet too many continue to live in poverty. Rocketing energy prices are wiping out the benefit of the winter fuel allowance. The Minister at questions earlier confirmed that there were not plans to change the winter fuel allowance, despite the rocketing energy prices.
	The current pensions system based on labour market participation translates poverty during working lives into poverty in old age. Current Government policies to tackle the unfair position of women and carers are far too timid, and they should have the courage to take the bold step of true reform and provide a state pension that delivers for all our pensioners. The state must provide all pensioners with a decent minimum income in retirement and take real steps to ameliorate the regressive effects of private pensions for those on lower incomes.

Jim Devine: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Weir: I have taken a lot of interventions.
	A citizen's pension would ensure that all our pensioners are lifted out of poverty and have a decent basic pension on which to build. It would tackle the problem of disincentive under the current pension credit system. It could be made affordable by utilising the amounts currently paid in basic state pension and pension credit and by reforming the system of tax relief on private pensions. There is no evidence that the current system of pension tax relief encourages private savings; indeed, it costs a fortune as it is massively geared to the better off. Turner pointed out that it costs about £12 billion, with another £8 billion in national insurance relief. That is a massive subsidy to private pensions instead of using taxpayers' money to provide a proper state pension. Worse still, more than half of the total cost of tax relief on private pension contributions is received by the richest 10 per cent. of the population.
	It is high time that the tax relief system was reformed to become much more progressive and transparent and, in particular, to encourage low and moderate income earners to save for retirement and reward those who do so. Instead of doing that, the Government seem intent on raising the state retirement age, which will have a disproportionate impact on the poor and in areas where people have lower life expectancy. For example, a man in Glasgow has a life expectancy of 69.3 years, compared with more than 80 for a man in Kensington. Clearly, the Glasgow man will seriously lose out if the pension age is increased. To be fair, Lord Turner recognised the problem and suggested that pension credit should continue to be paid at 65, but the Government rejected that in their response, which said that they would consider it nearer the relevant time. The evidence on life expectancy already exists, and one has to ask what they think is the relevant time given that they have already decided to raise the retirement age.

Sally Keeble: I am pleased to be able to speak in this part of the debate on the Queen's Speech.
	I was interested in the comments made by the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir). Let me offer a word of caution to him and to other hon. Members who have spoken about the Child Support Agency. As we all know from our advice surgeries, it is true that for many people the CSA has become a bureaucratic nightmare, but there was not a golden age before the CSA when justice was provided to women who had been abandoned by their partners—it is usually women who are left holding the baby. They had to go to court, and for most that was not affordable or feasible. Moreover, there was virtually no way in which the then Department of Health and Social Security could recoup any of the funds that went out to support lone parents and their children, who should have been properly supported by somebody in work. I hope that the forthcoming Bill will take matters forward. People should not think that there was a golden age; it never existed and women and their children had a nightmare time.

Michael Weir: I am not suggesting that. I am merely concerned that when we change the system, we do so for the better and do not make things worse, as may happen.

Sally Keeble: Yes, but the difficulties that women faced before the CSA was set up often went unrecognised, while the difficulties that arose afterwards are all too well known because they arrive in our advice surgeries.
	Several hon. Members seem to assume that the benign economic climate that we have enjoyed dropped down out of a tree into our laps, whereas it was entirely due to the policies that this Labour Government have pursued since 1997.

Philip Hammond: Can the hon. Lady remind the House when the unprecedented period of economic growth that the Chancellor keeps boasting about began?

Sally Keeble: Let me give a specific example. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone)—I was about to call him my hon. Friend because he is one of my neighbours—mentioned unemployment figures. Those started to come down very quickly because the windfall tax on privatised utilities went into the new deal, which the Conservatives have opposed consistently right down the line. The new deal has been very successful in getting people, particularly lone parents, into work and, for the first time, turning around the figures for lone parents out of work so that an increasing number are now in work. Even the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) would have to accept that at this stage of the Tory Government we had already had a catastrophic recession and were heading for a second one. Against that background, some of the statistics looked good. The figures on productivity and public services looked good at a time when grass cutters had to be paid only £1.20 an hour because they could be shipped up from Kent into London to work for rates that no one else would work for. The Conservatives have never really boasted about this, but even the statistics on international development looked good because the amount given was a proportion of gross national income at a time when GNI was going down rather than up. Nevertheless, I urge my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary not to think that it is worth having a massive recession just to improve some statistics to which the Conservatives like to turn.
	My constituents have enjoyed an amount of security and stability as a result of the sound economy. People tend to take it for granted that they have been able to pay their mortgages, while those with small businesses have been able to manage them. Yes, they have slightly more complex tax forms, but that goes with people having tax credits and other proper support mechanisms that have been delivered by the Government and have kept people out of poverty.
	The pensions system is another aspect of long-term security that we must ensure that we get right. The welcome proposals heralded in the Queen's Speech will be extremely important for my constituents. When I first became an MP, I held special advice surgeries in pensioners' sheltered housing estates where I was confronted by elderly women who were destitute—the amounts that they were living on were unspeakable. Most of them had worked for most of their adult lives and perceived that they had had two jobs because they had been looking after families as well. I remember getting a letter from a lady who berated me for comments that I had made about child care. She said: "That is complete rubbish. People should look after their own children, as my husband and I always did. I stayed at home while he worked, and when he came home he looked after the children and I went out to work." She had been working for all her adult life but still did not get a pension because the hours did not fit, she had paid the married women's stamp, and so on. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform is here. His proposals to deal with pensioner poverty among women are extremely important and will be welcome to people in my constituency. I also congratulate the Fawcett Society on the campaign that it has run and the lobbies and information that it has provided in taking the issue forward.
	Women pensioners have faced particular problems and have been hit in many different ways. First, they do not get the state pension. That is why I have always disagreed with those who say that we should simply increase the basic state pension because that is what pensioners need. Only 17 per cent. of women who work get the full state pension. It has always been clear that index-linking the state pension and compensating people for what they lost after the Tories broke the earnings link is not the way forward because it would not tackle the problems that women face. In addition, a disproportionate number of women have not had occupational pensions or they have not been sizeable. On average, men will get £103 a week from their occupational pension while women will get only £17. That is a telling figure, because occupational pensions have always been the bedrock of our successful pension arrangements in this country. However, because women will disproportionately work for smaller employers, who might not have had an occupational pension scheme, or will work shorter hours, they will not have that pension provision to back them up.
	The other finding from research is that women will tend to save for their children, instead of for their retirements. That is quite an obvious point when one thinks about one's own experience and what one does with one's own money. It has been found that although women might make pension provision, once their children come along they either spend their money on what their children need straight away or if they do put money by, they put it by for their children instead of for their pensions.
	For those reasons, women have ended up in a particular position in terms of pensions; although that does not take into account all the things that people perhaps know much more about, such as career breaks to look after children or elderly people, part-time work and so on. The Government were absolutely right to go for the minimum income guarantee and the pension credit at the early stages.

Brooks Newmark: Before the Chancellor became the Chancellor, he made a big to-do about ending means-testing. As soon as he became Chancellor, he failed to live up to his pledge. Surely the hon. Lady will recognise that many pensioners are not collecting their due because they find the means-testing process incredibly demeaning.

Sally Keeble: The Conservative party was very cruel to pensioners in running that nonsense about means-testing. The means test and the assessments that people have to undertake for pension credit are two completely different animals. People who went through the means-testing process know exactly how humiliating and degrading it was, but the process for claiming the pension credit was completely different. People could do it over the phone and talk it through.

Brooks Newmark: rose—

Sally Keeble: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a minute.
	Before I started campaigning with pensioners on claiming the pension credit, I got some friends of mine who are pensioners to go through it for themselves, to see whether it worked. The process did work—they could fill the forms in over the phone and they got the forms back, which was light years away from what had been done previously.

Ian Austin: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Sally Keeble: I want to have a go at the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) again, and then I will give way to my hon. Friend.

Brooks Newmark: Notwithstanding what the hon. Lady says, the fact of the matter is that up to 5 million pensioners are still not collecting what is their due, because they do not like the whole means-testing process.

Sally Keeble: Some people do not take the process up. I agree that that is an issue, just as it is an issue with the child trust fund. However, the figures for success show that the pension credit helps 1.9 million pensioners, of whom, significantly, 1.3 million are women. That is because it targets—[ Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are getting continuous sedentary comments from those on the Front Benches, which simply disrupts the debate, and I am not going to have any more of that.

Sally Keeble: The pension credit puts the money where it is most needed and, in particular, meets the problem of women who have a bit of money, but not enough to live on in retirement. The pension credit has been a real boon for those who have received it.

Ian Austin: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I agree with her that there is an issue if people are not claiming benefits to which they are entitled, such as the pension credit. I commend her for the work that she has done in encouraging her constituents to claim it, but does she agree that part of the problem lies with people such as the hon. Member for Braintree, who wander round telling pensioners how difficult it is to claim such benefits, how the means test is a scandal and that it is impossible for them to get the money that they are owed? Would it not be much better if he, like my hon. Friend, spent his time encouraging his constituents to get what they are owed, instead of dissuading them from claiming it?

Sally Keeble: Yes, my hon. Friend is right and the Government were right to target the money where it was needed, rather than blanketing it across the system.

Philip Hammond: rose—

Sally Keeble: I give way to the hon. Gentleman, but after that I want to get on with what I want to say.

Philip Hammond: I want to be clear that I understand what the hon. Lady is saying. The Chancellor said in 1994:
	"I want the next Labour Government to achieve...an elimination of the massive means testing now imposed upon the elderly".
	Is she trying to make a qualitative distinction between means-testing before the Chancellor and means-testing under him?

Sally Keeble: The old means test was an unpleasant and undignified process, but the means of claiming benefits that people have to claim was very straight forward. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not propose a blanket high level of pensions throughout the whole community, as that would be completely wrong. Targeting the money where it was most needed was absolutely the right thing to deal with the problem of ending pensioner poverty and, although I do not have the statistics on that written on this piece of paper, they are extremely good.
	I am glad that the proposals that are coming forward will not be about the universal or citizen's pension. That is the Liberal Democrats' proposal, although the Scottish National party also referred to it. Although superficially it looks attractive because everybody receives it, there are two objections. The obvious one is cost. I understand that to do what is wanted—that is, to get a universal pension up to the pension credit level—would account for some £60 billion a year by 2050. The second problem is to do with a deeply ingrained sense of justice among my constituents that if people make more effort, that should be recognised. It is important to keep that, albeit with a contributory principle, although one that is not quite as onerous as what we have now. Although I was initially attracted to the idea of a universal pension, it is right that we should retain a pensions process that recognises the contributions that people have made during their working lives, be that at home, through caring or in work.
	I also welcome the proposed improvements to home responsibilities protection and the fact that more women will have much longer full-time working records when that is introduced. Some of the problems that women have faced previously because of the restrictions on part-time work—partly because they could not get child care, as they can now—will, I hope, have worked their way out of the system.
	Finally, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform please to ensure that he addresses the problem of building women's confidence in pensions when those proposals are brought forward. A lot of women paid the national insurance stamp all their working lives, but received nothing. They took out private pension plans because they did not have occupational plans, but those plans were mis-sold. Women have also seen the state earnings-related pension scheme widow's pension largely disappear through changes that were made. It is important that women have the sense that if they pay into the system, it will pay out to them as well, and that it is worth putting money into their pension, so that they can see it as something for them, not just for their husbands or their partners.
	Apart from that, I look forward to seeing the proposals online, because they will address a burning sense of injustice that many of my constituents feel about the lack of pensions for them.

Sammy Wilson: I have enjoyed this debate, from the thoughtful, measured contributions of the Back Benchers to the shallow, knockabout stuff that we heard at the beginning from the two Front Benchers. This has been a good, enjoyable debate. Some people have objected to the Punch and Judy or knockabout stuff that we heard at the very beginning. However, if we cannot score political points in this House, there is hardly anywhere else that we can score them, so I have no great objection. People should not be surprised either, because the Prime Minister has promised us that we will get that sort of debate. He has told us that the Chancellor will at some stage deliver a great "clunking fist" to the jaw of the Leader of the Opposition. Listening to the Chancellor's laboured, ponderous response to the shadow Chancellor today, however, he did not strike me as much of a Muhammad Ali. Certainly, there was not much evidence of dancing like a butterfly or stinging like a bee. Perhaps—who knows—the knock-out blow will come at some stage.
	I am in a unique position. Since neither of the two main political parties is a rival to my party in Northern Ireland, as they do not stand for election there, I do not need to get involved in their economic squabbling. I just want to make some observations about the economy in Northern Ireland and the content of the Queen's Speech.
	Although the Democratic Unionist party believes in devolution for Northern Ireland, we must and do accept that a significant change in the economy has taken place under direct rule. In my constituency, for example, unemployment is now down to 4 per cent., the lowest it has ever been, and the growth rate in Northern Ireland is the highest of any region in the United Kingdom. I must be careful with Government-supplied statistics, as I notice that the Queen's Speech mentions legislation to enhance confidence in those, implying that there is not too much confidence, but anecdotal and visual evidence such as new building cannot but lead one to accept that there has been an improvement in the economy—

Peter Robinson: Since the DUP became the largest party.

Sammy Wilson: As my hon. Friend suggests, that progress has accelerated since the DUP became the largest party in 2003. We do not even control the place yet—we are not in government—so let us just wait until March, June or whenever, and we might see a difference.
	There are real concerns about the Northern Ireland economy, however, which is why we support the amendment. The economy will require a structural shift away from the public sector, on which we are heavily dependent, to the private sector. The Government have said that, local parties believe that and local business men want that. If there is to be that movement, however, the right conditions must be in place. Given the changes already introduced under direct rule, such as the review of public administration and cuts in the number of quangos, councils and bodies controlling health and education, people will need to be redeployed quickly from the public sector into the private sector. For that to happen, certain conditions will have to be met.
	First, Northern Ireland must become competitive. As we have heard, the competitiveness of the United Kingdom as a whole has dropped from fourth to 10th in the world. As we share a land boundary with the Irish Republic, which has had rapid growth, it is important that we have the right economic conditions. I was glad to hear the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) indicate that one of the changes required was to reduce the level of corporation tax. The level of taxation, including stealth taxes and so on, has never been higher in the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons for our decreased competitiveness.
	Several Labour Members have talked about the threat to the environment, and it is significant that that argument has appeared just when the Chancellor is running out of stealth taxes and must find a new excuse to get us to open our wallets and pay more. The threat of freezing or drowning—or frying, if we are talking about global warming—seems to be the Chancellor's next ploy to get his hands in our pockets. It is essential that we have a low tax base.

Jim Devine: The hon. Gentleman is a staunch supporter of the Union, but he seems to be arguing for Northern Ireland to have a different taxation policy that is more akin to that in the Republic. Is that correct?

Sammy Wilson: Absolutely not. I was about to say that I support the comments of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who, I am glad to say, has not fallen under the spell of Polly Toynbee, as some of his colleagues seem to have done. He was arguing for a low tax base for the United Kingdom economy as a whole, as that is believed to be one way of attracting and keeping industry in the United Kingdom. If Northern Ireland is to be the guinea pig, of course, we would welcome that. The Government seem to be willing to use Northern Ireland as a guinea pig for many other kinds of taxes. We will provide the testing ground for a new council tax, so we would be more than happy to test the effects of a new corporation tax.

Kelvin Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman suggests powerfully that a low-tax economy is a successful economy, and that the way to achieve competitiveness is to have low taxes. Why, then, are some of the highest taxes in Europe paid in the Scandinavian countries, which have successful economies and high economic growth? Is there some mistake?

Sammy Wilson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, but as has been accepted in today's debate, the economy of the Irish Republic, which is based on a low tax rate for industry, is one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.

Kelvin Hopkins: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the reasons for such strong growth in the Irish economy is massive fiscal transfers from the European Union? Something like 5 per cent. of its economy is due entirely to those transfers. When they stop, Ireland may have a bit more of a problem.

Sammy Wilson: Of course, those massive transfers were intended for the development of Ireland's infrastructure, such as roads, to which I shall refer in a moment. Companies were attracted to come to and stay in the Republic, however, by a tax regime that enables them to keep more of their profits.

Peter Robinson: With regard to Northern Ireland having a differential corporation tax headline rate, two key factors are involved. First, we are, I hope, coming out of years of conflict. Secondly, we are the only part of the United Kingdom that has a land frontier with a country that has a much lower level of corporation tax.

Sammy Wilson: I thank my hon. Friend for that point. We share a land boundary with the Republic, so the tax differential affects us much more than other parts of the United Kingdom. Once low corporation tax is seen to work in Northern Ireland, however, I am sure that other parts of the United Kingdom will want to benefit from it.

Brooks Newmark: The reason why a more competitive tax base has worked in the Republic of Ireland is that lowering tax has resulted in more tax revenue being collected. That is the most important point.

Sammy Wilson: I think that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the Laffer curve earlier, about which I used to speak to my economics students all the time. I do not think that they understood it too well.

Jim Devine: You would want to point out that when people visit your GP practices and doctors in Northern Ireland—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must use the correct parliamentary terms when addressing hon. Members.

Jim Devine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that although his constituents do not pay tax when they visit their doctors, those in the Republic pay €50 per visit. That is additional taxation. The system is not just based on lowering corporation tax; it is based on other forms of collection.

Sammy Wilson: Although, as I have said, the current administration has many advantages, unfortunately waiting lists to see a doctor in Northern Ireland are much longer than those in any other part of the United Kingdom. That forces many people to seek private care rather than waiting for treatment from the national health service.
	I am concerned about Northern Ireland's huge infrastructure deficit, which—as was pointed out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson)—is a legacy of years of the troubles. As a result of the IRA bombing campaign, resources were diverted to either security provision or compensation to undo the damage done by terrorists. It is significant that the very people who caused that damage are those who now complain most about the effects it has had on the Northern Ireland economy.
	I am particularly interested in some of the proposals in the Queen's Speech. First, there are the proposed changes in the planning system. I believe that one of the factors that has had an impact on economic growth in Northern Ireland is the slowness of that system. The simplest planning application takes an average of six months to go through the system; in some council areas it takes a year, and a major application can take up to two or three years. When Tesco began to come to Northern Ireland after the ceasefires, it described its experience of the system as "like wading through treacle", because the process of obtaining planning permission was so difficult and slow. I shall be interested to see what measures will be introduced to improve the planning system in that part of the United Kingdom, and I hope that some of them will be mirrored in our own economy.
	Secondly, there is the proposed reform of welfare. I welcome the Government's earlier legislation, especially the measures to take people off incapacity benefit and put them into work. I think it important for us to give people opportunities to contribute to society. Let me say in deference to some of the Members sitting on my right that when it comes to welfare, I am of the Churchill rather than the Polly Toynbee school. I believe in safety nets, not in cosy blankets, and I think it important for welfare reform to be part of the restructuring of the economy.
	Thirdly, I am very interested in the legislation on serious and organised crime. As the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has pointed out, organised crime is a massive drain on the economy in Northern Ireland. It deters investment, undermines existing industries and, of course, is used to swell the coffers of terrorist organisations. Although much work has been done, the proceeds of organised crime are still very difficult to seize. We must find a way of conveying the message that crime does not pay.
	We hope that many of the measures that will have an impact on economic growth in Northern Ireland will find their way to a devolved Assembly. Indeed, part of what the Queen's Speech promised for Northern Ireland has already been delivered. We may not approve of the way in which that Bill completed its passage last week, the rapidity of its progress or the lack of scrutiny, but we believe that it will make any future devolved Assembly a safer Assembly, with safeguards that were not in the Belfast agreement and are likely to make the Assembly more stable. Now it is up to Sinn Fein to deliver on the other side, and give a commitment to supporting the police and law and order.
	We hope that, having provided the legislative framework within which we believe devolved government can work, this Government will put pressure on those who wish to be part of government in Northern Ireland to support the police and create the right conditions for confidence and stability in any devolved Administration. However, regardless of what might be done and what powers might be vested in Northern Ireland, the huge macro-economic decisions that will affect our economy will be made in this place. One of my reasons for wanting to speak tonight was my belief that it is important for the right economic policies to be established nationally, because they have an impact on the regions of the United Kingdom—an impact that is sometimes exaggerated and magnified.
	I believe that the Government have got some things right and some things wrong. For those that they have got right, we will praise and support them; for those that they have got wrong, we will oppose and condemn them.

David Anderson: I apologise for my absence earlier. I had to attend an all-party parliamentary group meeting.
	The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) seems to want us to have collective amnesia. Unfortunately for him, while he was at Eton some of us were in the real world, dealing with the impact of a low-tax economy and the reality of the social policy led by his leader's former employer, who really did believe that unemployment was a price worth paying. Who paid it? Not him or his ilk. It was paid not by the elite in this country, but by the poor, the old, the weak and the vulnerable, and the millions who were forced on to the dole. It was paid by the families of men and women who were left devastated by the so-called modernisation of British society, and by the towns and villages up and down the country that had the heart pulled out of them.
	In 1986, as a member of the National Union of Mineworkers, I attended the National Coal Board review hearing with my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (John Cummings) and for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington). Few other people bothered to attend. In 1986, unemployment was at 18.2 per cent. in the region where we lived. It was said that
	"Councillor Cummings gave a graphic and depressing picture of the damage to the social fabric caused by job losses in the mining industry when added to the existing picture of unemployment caused by a far more widespread decline in local manufacturing industry and services. The general scene was one of a decline in population, of the district being left with an ageing population many of whom were chronically sick, and of a general lack of resources."
	At the time, the National Coal Board said, "It is not for us to decide."
	"It was for the Government and Parliament to decide what action might be necessary to alleviate the social consequences inherent"
	in the closure under discussion. The gentleman heading the review team said:
	"the economic and social factors, though disturbing, can carry little weight."
	There can be no discussion of poverty and deprivation in this country without mention of the word "Easington". My hon. Friend the Member for Easington was chair of Easington council, and what he said in 1986 came true. It came true because people did not listen to the words that he and other people spoke.
	Who else lost out because unemployment was a price worth paying? The young kids who had to resort to the youth training scheme and the youth opportunities programme; elderly people forced out of care by public service budget cuts, and those who could not get care in the first place; young people who turned to crime and drugs as a way of life instead of following their parents into the world of work; the skilled men who could not get work and were told to curl up in the corner and go away. I am also thinking of people like my friend Keith Lamb, a skilled mechanic for 26 years who spent three years on the dole from 1992 and then got a job making cardboard boxes for £82 a week; the children taught in leaking classrooms in classes with too many pupils by teachers who were ground down by the lack of opportunity of the pupils in their charge; the dedicated ancillary workers in our public services—the porters, the cleaners, the school-meals workers—who were either forced out of their jobs by compulsory competitive tendering or forced into a future of reduced wages, fewer holidays and disgraceful sick pay schemes and were told that they were no longer part of the NHS team; and the public sector professionals trying to hold together our health and social services while expending their skills and time in constant budget cutting, reorganisations and redundancy negotiations, watching a lifetime of work disappearing before their eyes.
	Those people are not figments of my imagination, and such job cuts are not imaginary. They are real people. I am talking about the simple statistics of the nightmare of that time: 3 million people on the dole and one in four people living in poverty, and generational unemployment having become a way of life. They are real people: people I lived with, grew up with, worked with and played with. They are the people I represented as a trade union activist, the people who came before me as a member of the social security appeal tribunal and the people I looked after as a care worker in social services. They are the people who paid the price for the arrogance, the short-termism and the lack of concern and care of a political ideology that did not believe in responsibility and the concepts of society or community.
	It was for those reasons that not only people from my background but the people of this country rejected the Conservative party. Its current position is riddled with inconsistencies and fake promises rather than real policy, and people know that it is not possible to have good social policy at the same time as massive cuts are being made in public services. I do not know whether the sums for that are £17 billion, £21 billion, £40 billion, £50 billion or more, but I do know that if the Conservatives do that they will not find it possible to protect and defend public services, and the most vulnerable people in our society who rely on them. No matter how hard they flip-flop and how hard they pretend that they care, people will not be conned by them again.

Jim Devine: Does my hon. Friend agree that caring, compassionate Conservatism is a contradiction in terms?

David Anderson: It is absolutely a contradiction in terms, and the people who lived through the times I am talking about will never accept that it is anything other than that.

Philip Hammond: Listening to the hon. Gentleman's rant, one would think that the incoming Conservative Government of 1979 inherited a perfectly functioning economy. Does he not accept one shred of responsibility for the massive economic changes that had to be made in the 1980s as a result of the disaster that this country had sleepwalked into in the '70s?

David Anderson: I accept that it became quite clear that social deprivation was not a price worth paying. The measures taken by the Conservative Government were not the right ones to take; they destroyed people's lives and destroyed the economy of this country.
	To ensure that people are not conned by the Conservatives again, Labour Members must not just sit back; we must have a real policy position based on past results and on a stable economy to give people faith in our ability to deliver. Our past results have been remarkable and we should be proud of them; we should not take any lectures from Conservative Members. We are spending more money than ever before on our pensioners, especially on those who need it most.

James McGovern: My hon. Friend speaks eloquently and forcefully about his part of the country, and I wish to make a point about Scotland. On the day of the Queen's Speech, anyone who was not careful when watching the television might have stumbled across the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) proclaiming that the Queen's Speech did nothing whatever for Scotland. As a Scottish MP I find that a bit puzzling, and I should take this opportunity to say that I was also saddened by the earlier scathing remarks about Dundee of the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), which will be heard not only by the people of Dundee but by his party colleague, the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie).
	Does my hon. Friend however agree that reform of the Child Support Agency and of the pension system to ensure good and adequate pension provision for the next 40 years and other crucial reforms amount to a lot being done for Scotland, and does he further agree that Scots will—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has given his hon. Friend enough to agree with him about for the time being.

David Anderson: I was going to say that I could not agree more, but I could have agreed more if my hon. Friend had been allowed to speak for a bit longer. The benefits that have come from this House and have been shared across the United Kingdom are obviously positives. The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned that he had seen real improvements on the ground in his part of the country, and it is clear that those north of the border have also seen such improvements. Their experience is similar to that of the people where I come from: we have removed the scourge of youth unemployment; we have built extra support for working families and their children; we have lifted thousands of children out of poverty; and we are rebuilding the very fabric of society through new schools and new hospitals, and by refurbishing millions of homes.
	Let us not forget that we would not be here today without the national minimum wage and the tax credits that some Members have tried to rubbish in this House today. There have clearly been problems. But there has also been massive good news for people who have had tax credits. We need to do more, however.
	Our Government must do more. The pension reforms are key to the long-term future of this country, and they are well-timed and necessary, but they must reflect the needs of the people of this country. To that end, I urge the Secretary of State to look at the issue of raising the retirement age in the knowledge that not all people have shared in the increase in longevity that there has been in this country. Manual workers still die much earlier in this country than do professional workers, and the factors linked to that should be considered. Likewise, raising the school leaving age may reduce the time that people spend in work, but let us not pretend that hard work did not kill anybody. Look at the facts. When the retirement age for miners was reduced in the 1980s from 65 to 62, their average life expectancy was 65 years and two days. It is no wonder that the mineworkers' pension scheme was so well financed—there was nobody alive to take money out of it.
	In the effort to build up security in retirement for tomorrow's pensioners, I urge the Secretary of State to work with the representatives of today's pensioners in order to address their real needs now. I understand his reluctance to concede the demands of the National Pensioners Convention, which has called for him to raise the basic state pension to the level of the minimum income guaranteed for all. I also understand his reluctance to reinstate the link with earnings, and I appreciate the problems associated with paying a full pension to all citizens in order to deal with the unjust treatment of women in retirement. However, he has to accept that the NPC and other representative groups, including Age Concern, are genuinely concerned about the real-life experiences of the older people of today.
	In particular, I hope that the Secretary of State will address the case put forward by the NPC that the national insurance fund is massively over-funded, standing at £22 billion above its recommended "safe cash flow balance" level. It is clear that a fund that was set up and paid for by yesterday's workers is now being withheld from them in their present position as today's pensioners. A provision reinstating the link between pensions and earnings should be included in the pension reform Bill and not left to chance or the fate of the market. Using the national insurance fund for this purpose would remove that uncertainty. What cannot be denied is the legitimacy of the concerns expressed by pensioners' organisations. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to hold a genuine consultation with them during the Bill's passage.
	In the shorter term, I return to the point that I made during today's Question Time—the real impact on older people of the energy price increases that have occurred in the past three years. This is a real-time issue. National Energy Action believes that today, 2.8 million people face real fuel poverty. The Government's statistics are based on a figure of 1.2 million people, but that goes back almost two years. I urge the Secretary of State to address this issue. If he cannot do so in the short term, will he at least consider building in to next year's state pension a heating upgrade to cover the shortfall?
	In calling for that, I have come full circle. Our lack of control over the utility companies and the price hikes are a direct result of the policies adopted by the Conservatives in their orgy of self-indulgence as they sold off our national assets. Nobody told Sid while he was buying his cut-price shares that he would end up paying through the nose for gas and electricity, or that water prices would quadruple as pipes leaked and drought orders and hose-pipe bans became the norm. Sadly for the Conservatives, some of us will never suffer from political amnesia. We will neither forget nor forgive the waste that they laid across this country, and this country will not turn to them while their policy is based on rogue promises and economic nonsense.

Philip Dunne: It is a great pleasure to contribute to the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), who gave us an impassioned history lesson on the politics of 20 years ago. As I was not a Member of the House in those days, I found it quite refreshing to imagine what life must have been like in the Thatcher years.
	Let us turn to the real subject of this debate, which is not what happened in 1986 but what is happening in 2006. I have to say that I was disappointed by the Chancellor's contribution, as I am sure many Members in all parts of the House were. I was anticipating that, in his farewell appearance at a Queen's Speech debate in the role of Chancellor, he might put on a magisterial display and range across the successes under his Chancellorship. Instead, we had a policy-lite speech that consisted primarily of attacks on Conservative Back Benchers. When we look at  Hansard tomorrow, we will see that he spent more time criticising members of the No Turning Back group than he did on Labour party policy. That may have had something to do with the fact that he threw away most of his speech on Labour policy because he was so enraged by the reaction of Opposition Members. That is not a particularly encouraging sign of what we can look forward to should he become Prime Minister shortly.
	I shall talk about what the Chancellor did not want to talk about—his legacy—and the need for sound public finance. We hear often from the Chancellor about his successes, but he chooses to gloss over those elements of the economy that have been less successful. I shall focus on a couple of those elements tonight.
	In 1997, we had had five years of rising GDP and, as a Labour Member who spoke earlier seemed conveniently to forget, that growth rose at a higher rate in the last five years of the Conservative Government than it has on average in the nearly 10 years of the Labour Government. They do not like to be reminded of that.

Kelvin Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman claims credit for growth between 1992 and 1997. That is fair enough, but the Conservatives first dug a gigantic hole in the economy, because of their exchange rate mechanism policy, so it started from a very low base—

Philip Hammond: You supported it!

Kelvin Hopkins: I did not support it. I was not a Member of Parliament at the time, but I would have opposed it root and branch. In any event, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) is starting with a year in which growth was extremely low and therefore exaggerating his claims of Tory success.

Philip Dunne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to highlight the fact—I was not going to refer to it and the Chancellor certainly never refers to it—that the Chancellor was a more enthusiastic supporter of British membership of the ERM than anyone in that Conservative Government. The point that I was trying to make about GDP growth was that we are repeatedly told about the success of this Chancellor's conduct of the economy and the many quarters of steady economic growth, forgetting that the foundations were laid during the Chancellorship of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).
	The other issue I wished to address is that of taxation as a proportion of GDP. In 1997, taxation was under 39 per cent. of GDP, but for the year ending April 2007 it is forecast to have increased to 42.6 per cent., which will be the highest proportion since 1986. That is not a record in which the Chancellor should take much pride.
	What are the consequences of those fragilities and frailties in the economy? One that we need to bear in mind—it has been touched on by other hon. Members—is record levels of debt in the economy. Public sector debt is at record levels, personal debt is at record levels and the debts that are not on the Government's books, because they have been carefully kept off them, are also at record levels.

Kelvin Hopkins: I have recently been looking at the Government's debt compared with that in the past and of other countries. Actually, our overall debt is quite low and it would make sense to allow public debt, especially for investment, to rise. We could substitute public debt for private debt and save a lot on revenue spending by the Exchequer.

Philip Dunne: Again, I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight the fact that public debt is nudging the levels that the European Union allows. If the Government had not changed the figures—thankfully we will in due course have an independent body to stop them doing so—we would have broken both the EU rules and the Government's own borrowing rules.

Brooks Newmark: In fact, through clever devices, the Chancellor has been using off-balance sheet financing, which has increased so that today it is almost £1 trillion, compared with the £486 billion of on-balance sheet borrowing.

Philip Dunne: As I have just said, off-balance sheet debt is of great concern and I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the figure.
	I have already mentioned the increase in on-balance sheet debt. If we look at the current year, the Chancellor predicted public borrowing of £36 billion for the year ending this April as recently as the March Budget, which was a minor fall in the level of new public debt compared with the previous year, which stood at £37.1 billion. We have just received the figures for the first six months of this year, which show that net public sector borrowing has increased by 19 per cent. since last year, and is now £25.4 billion. That compares to a figure of £21.4 billion for the same period last year. The Government, at this stage in the year, are way off beam in their forecast of what will happen in respect of public sector borrowing this year, as a whole.
	To turn briefly to off-balance sheet debt, my hon. Friend mentioned a figure, but the figures before me show that £46 billion of off-balance sheet debt has resulted from private finance initiative projects, and more than 700 PFI deals have been used to fund infrastructure. I do not have a problem with that, because it is important that we use private sources of funding to improve infrastructure. However, we have to be honest about the impact that that will have on public finances, and the legacy that will result for years to come.

Kelvin Hopkins: rose—

Philip Dunne: I have been very generous in giving way to the hon. Gentleman, but I must make progress.
	There are several other aspects of off-balance sheet debt. Hon. Members have talked about the Child Support Agency, which has run up an astonishing £3.5 billion in outstanding maintenance payments. I accept that that figure is not the Government's obligation, but the obligation of absent parents. The Government are due to collect that money, but are failing to do so. The agency calculates that almost £2 billion of that £3.5 billion is uncollectable, and in recent reports in  The Times, it is anticipated that the Government will recognise that they have made a mess of managing that debt accumulation. They are unable to write off those debts using their own computer systems and will have to legislate to do so.
	The third liability with which the Government are saddling us is on the whole issue of public sector pensions. There has been some reference to pensions in the debate, but not enough, and very little reference has been made to public sector pensions. I welcome the proposals stemming from the Turner report. We have had many discussions about pensions in the Chamber, and we will continue to discuss the subject when the pensions Bill comes before the House, but at this point, it seems that no attempt will be made in the Bill to try to address public sector pension liabilities, which have mushroomed in recent years.
	A detailed research report put together by the Institute of Economic Affairs calculates that public sector pension liabilities have exceeded £1 trillion. An accurate calculation, such as those made by actuaries, would recognise the Government's cost of borrowing. The Government use a discount rate, based on the rate that would apply to a double-A corporation that was borrowing to fund its liabilities. Of course, the Government are triple-A rated, and can borrow much more cheaply than that. That simply understates the scale of the liability, presumably for political reasons. In the pensions Bill, there has been no attempt to recognise that the public sector needs to bear its share of the challenges that we will face in dealing with demographic change in coming generations.
	It is not only Opposition Members who have raised that concern. Many outside commentators have castigated the Government for dropping the ball as a result of the deal done in Warwick before the last election. To name just one, David Frost, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, has said:
	"The huge cost of public-sector pensions is one of the biggest issues facing this country and the government is doing nothing to address it. It is totally unfair that the burden of pension reform is being left to the private sector."
	I agree with that.
	I turn from the Government to the subject of the personal debt legacy. Earlier this evening, it was mentioned that personal debt in the UK has risen rapidly, by more than £100 billion, or 10.2 per cent., in the past 12 months. It totalled £1.258 trillion at the end of September this year, and it has more than tripled since 1993. That accounts for a large part of our economic growth, which has been spurred by consumer spending over the past few years. The legacy of the Chancellor that concerns me is the problems that will be posed for people who have run up substantial debts that they are unable to pay and the impact on the economy of that debt bubble bursting—something almost too frightening to contemplate.
	Companies are making good business from encouraging people to enter into individual voluntary agreements; in other words, taking a short cut to declaring themselves bankrupt. Rates of personal bankruptcy are at a historical high—not something from which any Chancellor should take great comfort.
	The Chancellor touched only fleetingly on another aspect of his legacy—the growing increase in unemployment in the UK, on which he puts a somewhat different spin. We have had 18 months of trend increase in unemployment, which is running at 5.6 per cent. across the country as a whole. That is of concern to all of us, but of particular concern to me is the fact that unemployment appears to be rising much more rapidly in some rural areas that have historically relied on basic manufacturing. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), in a characteristically impassioned intervention on the Chancellor, pointed out that over the past 12 months unemployment in Shropshire has risen by an astonishing 36 per cent. In my constituency, much of that unemployment has been in the aluminium capital of England—Bridgnorth—where we have lost 200 manufacturing jobs in the past six months alone.
	The consequence of the Chancellor's legacy is that corporate Britain feels that it is under much more pressure than he seems to believe. My hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor referred to the CBI survey published this morning, which makes a timely contribution to our debate. Three quarters of the people surveyed believe that the corporate tax regime is worse than it was in 2001. The Chancellor rather disparagingly said that the survey was based on responses from only 89 companies. However, if he had taken the trouble to read it, he would have found that it was based on the FTSE 350 companies, so 89 responses represent about 25 per cent., which is a high response rate from any type of corporate survey and indicates the concern among most of the largest companies in the land that took the trouble to respond.
	Areas of concern relate to over-taxation and over-regulation and to the fact that both may encourage businesses to move away from this country. The headline tax rate for corporate Britain, at 30 per cent., is about five percentage points ahead of the European Union, which is significantly higher than the rate in Ireland, as we heard earlier. The tax burden on companies has increased as a whole, and the proportion of direct taxation is more than 22 per cent., compared to about 19 per cent. 10 years ago. The increase is significant and explains the concerns. Although the headline corporate tax rate has gone down, the overall proportion of tax contributed by corporate Britain to the Treasury has gone up considerably.
	In an intervention earlier, I referred to a report, published last month, by KPMG for the Investment Management Association on the City's contribution to that increased taxation. The report argues that funds that in the past we would have expected to be domiciled in the UK are increasingly being domiciled outside this country to avoid the taxes levied on the financial services sector. As I pointed out earlier, over the past 10 years twice as many funds have been attracted to set up in Ireland and 10 times as many in Luxembourg as in the UK. The conclusion of the report is that
	"the UK's tax system is to blame".
	The other concern that emerges from these reports is that if we continue with an over-regulated and over-taxed corporate environment, we will increasingly lose many of our corporates, which will domicile in more favourable climates. The Chancellor is living in the past once again. He repeated with some glee the numbers that he had quoted at Treasury questions earlier this month. He spoke about the number of companies that have located here in comparison with other European countries as if it provided a magnificent rebuttal of my point. In fact, he was talking about companies that located here over the past nine years, but we are talking about companies today that are thinking about moving overseas. It is apples and pears. We are not interested in what has happened over the past nine years, but concerned about what is happening now and what is at stake in Britain today.
	In that regard, the comments of Mr. Chris Spooner, the head of financial planning and tax at HSBC—one of the largest companies currently domiciled in this country—in a speech given to the Chartered Institute of Taxation earlier this month, are revealing. He said that he was no longer happy with the tax situation in Britain:
	"The UK used to be a good place for tax reasons. I am not sure that this is the case any more. We take the competitive environment very seriously and there are others like us".
	The Government and the Chancellor should not take that threat lightly.
	I should like to make two final points before closing. One relates to the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech and last year's Budget: the focus on education and the importance of increasing standards to maintain our economic competitiveness. There has been a series of studies attempting to understand why this country's science community is under such pressure. I met someone at the weekend who is the managing director of a substantial software IT company. He told me that he attended a conference the other day at which he found out that there are 3,000 physics PhDs in India, which is more than all the PhDs in the whole of Europe. Last year, the number of students taking physics A-level in this country was down 24 per cent. on the number in 1994. The number of chemistry students taking A-level is also down, though not by quite so much— [Interruption.] It was up in one year, but is down significantly over the period since 1994. In fact, since I am being challenged on the number, it is down 8 per cent. since the Government came to power in 1997. There is a very serious risk that we will not generate the students we need today to become the business leaders of tomorrow.

Peter Bone: It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), who, as usual, made a powerful and thoughtful speech.
	In her most Gracious Speech to Parliament, Her Majesty stated two fundamental objectives that are extremely relevant to the people of Wellingborough. First, she said:
	"At the heart of my Government's programme will be further action to provide strong, secure and stable communities".
	Secondly, she said:
	"My Government will carry through the modernisation of healthcare based on the founding principles of the National Health Service."
	I agree with the Government that we cannot have a strong, secure and stable community without health care based on the founding principles of the NHS. Those founding principles are that everybody should have access to similar health provision, wherever they live in the country.
	I would like to speak today about how, due to lack of funding, the Government are failing to uphold the founding principles of the national health service in my area. I would like to stress at this point how grateful I am to the doctors, nurses, support staff and medical professionals who work tirelessly, often under difficult circumstances. If it were not for their hard work and dedication, the NHS would be in a much poorer state.
	If Wellingborough constituents need to go to hospital, they will attend either Kettering or Northampton general on most occasions. Both those hospitals can be a 45-minute journey away, which makes the trip extremely difficult for elderly and vulnerable patients. Neither hospital is in the Wellingborough constituency. I have been told several times by Ministers at the Dispatch Box how many more doctors and nurses there are in Wellingborough since Labour came to power. That always amuses me slightly because none of them is based in my constituency. Given the lack of a hospital in Wellingborough, Kettering general finds itself full to capacity, and that is set to get worse.
	The Wellingborough constituency consists of two urban towns and a cluster of villages. We are part of the Milton Keynes and south midland sub-regional strategy, under which 167,000 homes will be built in Northamptonshire over the next few years. Thousands of those homes will be built in Wellingborough. In fact, they are being built now. We have a lack of health care provision now. What will it be like when all those new homes are built?
	There is an abundance of plans and information about the development in my area, but no plans or information about the infrastructure that is needed to cope with that explosion of house building. It is no good waiting for the homes to be built before the Government start to think about health care provision. We need more of it, and we need it now. In Wellingborough, it is impossible to get an NHS dentist. New residents find it almost impossible to sign on at a GP surgery, and our nearest hospitals are being forced to make cuts left, right and centre.
	This is not the first time that I have brought the issue to Ministers' attention. Since first coming to Parliament, I have consistently raised the issue of the lack of health care provision through parliamentary questions, a meeting with a Health Minister and Westminster Hall and main Chamber debates. Yet I still have to raise the issue today, and I will continue to raise it until the Government accept that my constituents and north Northamptonshire as a whole are not getting their fair share of health care compared to the rest of the country. With an excellent set of doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, an excellent set of professional managers in both the primary care trust and the hospitals and an excellent performance in efficiency by Kettering hospital, how can it be that we still have the most acute crisis in our local NHS?

Philip Hollobone: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his remarks, which are, as usual, spot on. Does he agree that the situation has been made far worse in recent months with the forced amalgamation into a Northamptonshire primary care trust, so that north Northamptonshire's NHS must pay the price for financial overspends in other parts of the county and the east midlands?

Peter Bone: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. In fact, I was coming to that point.
	The answer lies with the underfunding of our local strategic health authority, and in particular north Northamptonshire. It is best explained by Sir Richard Tilt, who was the then chairman of the Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland strategic health authority. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Health on 15 August 2005, he said:
	"We have an impressive track record of achieving national targets and delivering financial balance. The SHA was categorised as 'high performing'.
	We are however the worst funded SHA relative to the national capitation formula which seeks to enable a fair, equitable distribution across the NHS.
	Kettering General Hospital for example has a reference cost index of 89. Indeed North Northamptonshire is our most pressurised health community. Northamptonshire Heartlands PCT which covers this population (including Corby with its severe health problems) is 32 million pounds (9.9%) below capitation."

Jeremy Hunt: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Peter Bone: I am afraid that I will not give way, because other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.
	The letter continues:
	"I am sure you will not be surprised that we believe we cannot deliver both financial and non-financial targets in 2005/06.
	It will be a simple and inevitable consequence of a growing gap between our allocated funding and the monies we need (as defined by the national formula) to meet the needs of our population."
	That was Sir Richard Tilt's view in August 2005.
	The crux of the matter is that the Government spend a lot of time, money and effort working out what is a fair level of funding for each PCT based on its needs compared to similar areas across the country. That has been developed so that we have a level playing field across the national health service. As the Secretary of State for Health said in a letter to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) on 25 August 2005:
	"A weighted capitation formula is used to determine each PCT's target share of available resources, to enable them to commission similar levels of health service for populations in similar need."
	I agree entirely with the Secretary of State. That is exactly what should happen in our NHS, but it is not happening in north Northamptonshire and, year after year, we are underfunded. There is no end in sight to this underfunding. In a letter to me, the Secretary of State said:
	"Northamptonshire Heartlands PCT will be 3.5 per cent. under target by 2007/8."
	While the gap between what we should get and what we actually get is being closed, we will still not receive what the Government say is our fair and equitable funding. In fact, north Northamptonshire will still be £13.2 million short of its fair share. This lack of funding by the Government is causing the crisis in Wellingborough and the surrounding areas.
	Let us look at the figures a little more closely and at the funding for north Northamptonshire compared to the national average while bearing in mind that we should be better funded than the national average because of our areas of severe deprivation. Let us just go back three years to 2003-04 when revenue allocations were directly made to primary care trusts for the first time. In 2003-04, the PCT only received 90 per cent. of the funding that it should have had compared with the national average. This was a shortfall of £22.2 million. In 2004-05, we again received only 90 per cent. compared with the national average. This was a shortfall of £24.4 million. Almost unbelievably, in 2005-06, the figure fell to 89 per cent. of the national average, increasing the shortfall to £29.37 million. This year, the shortfall is £20.16 million and, next year, it is predicted to be £15.08 million. This gives a total shortfall since 2003-04 of £11,210,000.
	If we had had the funding that the Government said we should have had, there would be no crisis in our local health service. The people of Wellingborough and the surrounding areas have suffered because the Government have not implemented their own policy—a policy to bring fairness and a level playing field to what is supposed to be a national health service, not a postcode lottery health service.
	Let me list some of the cuts that Kettering general hospital has been forced to make in recent weeks and months due to the lack of funding. They include reducing nurse levels to the absolute minimum, making 2,100 patients wait a minimum of five months for their operation, delaying planned second operations such as hip replacements and removing patients from the waiting list for low-priority operations. So apparently the answer to waiting lists is not improved patient care, but is just to tell patients that they can no longer have their operations. Further cuts involve redeploying surplus staff into existing vacancies with little regard to suitability, closing a surgical ward, closing an operating theatre, reducing prescriptions on discharge from 28 to seven days, closing a further medical ward, reducing the availability of consultants, making patients wait longer for treatment in audiology, freezing vacancies, reducing maintenance funding, increasing canteen prices and making nurses pay to park at the hospital.
	There is, however, one part of Kettering hospital where the patients are not kept waiting, where operations are not delayed and where there is never a complaint about the quality of service. Several months ago, a new day care unit was built in the grounds of the hospital. It has 28 beds, four operating theatres, and a breast cancer screening centre. The unit has never had any adverse statistics recorded against it, and the reason why is that it does not have any patients, doctors or nurses. A brand new unit is sitting empty and the hospital does not know if or when it is going to be able to open it. But there is one part that is open—the typing pool that is paying all the bills to maintain a new, empty, mini-hospital.
	What my constituents need and what north Northamptonshire desperately needs is a new hospital in the Wellingborough area. A new hospital with minor accident and emergency facilities would ease the massive burden that Kettering and Northampton hospitals face each and every day.
	I have spoken about formulae; I have spoken about cuts. I now want to convey how these actually affect people in my constituency. Last week, Mrs. James and her son came to visit me at my weekly surgery. Mrs. James had written a long letter about the treatment that her husband received in Northampton general hospital. I want to read a few extracts from that letter. Mrs. James writes:
	"I repeatedly pointed out that he was not able to eat. This was in part due to him being unaware of when food and drink was available.
	"My son, Ian placed a large notice at the back of Colin's bed stating he could not see and might need help with eating and drinking. Within a short time a nurse came to see us and said the nurses did not have time to feed patients as there were only four of them and they had thirteen patients."
	I have that rather sad sign with me. Mrs. James continues:
	"Having lost approximately a third of his body weight and being severely weakened through lack of food and the dehydration tablets, his poor body could not stand against three infections.
	"He begged us to take him out and told us and at least one nurse that he felt he had been dropped into a pit and left to rot. The outcome seems to be not far from this."
	Mr. James died four hours after coming home, as a result of three infections he contracted on the ward.
	The people in my constituency and in north Northamptonshire deserve a fairer share of the national cake. I am not asking for more than our fair share, just what the Government say we should be getting, but are not. Why should my constituents suffer? This is meant to be a national health service, not a postcode lottery health service. I have two suggestions to improve health care provision in north Northamptonshire and to make it fairer for my constituents. First, I want a guarantee from the Secretary of State for Health that there will be an investigation into the provision of a new hospital in my constituency to coincide with the massive growth in population in the area. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I urge Northamptonshire PCT, and Kettering general and Northampton general hospitals to put patient care first, not Government accountants. I urge them to cease making cuts to patient care and to spend the £111 million that we should have received from the Government through their own capitation formula. The Government have said that we should have had that money for health care in north Northamptonshire. Let us use this funding for better health care provision for the people of my constituency. I challenge the PCT and the local hospitals to stand up against the Government and put the health care of patients first instead of satisfying the accountants in Whitehall. If they do that, they will have my full support.

Brooks Newmark: After seven hours of patience, I am pleased to be able to participate in the final day of the Queen's Speech debate. I hope to abide by the principle that ought to apply to both regulation and legislation: less is more. The meat, or should I say the gristle, of this year's Gracious Speech is the Statistics and Registration Service Bill. As the Treasury Committee, on which I serve, discovered in its investigation of the independence of statistics before the summer break, there are some deep misgivings about the Government's proposals. Some of those misgivings, although happily not all, are reflected in the Bill that was published last Wednesday.
	The quality of, and ease of access to, statistics forms the bedrock of administrative oversight and parliamentary scrutiny. When questioned about the structure and powers of an independent board, Lord Moser told our Committee that
	"if one needs one word, it is 'scrutiny'; it is advising the public, advising Parliament."
	We might be forgiven for thinking that the principle of economy, which ought to apply to regulation and legislation, ought not to apply to statistics, because a wealth of material is always to our benefit. However, less can be more when it comes to statistics, too. The Bill does not explicitly address the burdens associated with the collection of and access to statistical information. A study by the British Chambers of Commerce, published earlier this month and entitled "Red Tape: The Real Story", tackles exactly that issue. It contains a number of case studies drawn from real business. One of the first studies concerns the impact of Government statistics on business.
	The real problem is that the proposed Bill is introspective, which is symptomatic of what is happening across the Government. Legislation is proposed without a clear view of the effect that it will have after it has passed through its parliamentary stages and gone into force in the wide world. The Treasury wants to make a splash in the press by overhauling the treatment of statistics, which is all well and good. However, we will no doubt have something to say about the details of the proposals when the Bill is debated in the House.
	It is clear that irrelevant and inappropriate statistics are as burdensome on business and the economy as a whole as unnecessary legislation and even regulation. Chris Harrod, the chief executive of a sports equipment company, said in the British Chambers of Commerce study:
	"as a small businessman I am regularly required to fill out forms by the Office for National Statistics. Many of the forms we are asked to fill out, like the Business Register Survey and the Monthly Enquiry into Production ask for the same information."
	He said that the Government
	"should either share data across departments as a matter of course or they should look at including default information. At the moment I spend hours of my time which should be devoted to other areas of my business filling in these forms."
	The sharing of data has in itself become a minefield. Our Committee examined the problem in detail and the Government's response welcomed our recommendations on the sharing of data and the safeguards that must be in place before that can safely take place. I fear that the complex interactions among the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the need to share administrative data will hamstring the Bill and add to the complexity faced by both the successor to the Office for National Statistics and business.
	The British Chambers of Commerce annual burdens barometer has identified the cost to business of major regulations approved since 1998 as exceeding £50 billion and climbing well into the stratosphere. Some of us would have been present earlier this year when the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) was good enough to introduce show and tell to the Chamber by unfurling the whole document and offering a line-by-line commentary of it. By happy coincidence, the subject of the first entry on the burdens barometer was the cost of the Data Protection Act, which has exceeded £6 billion since 1998. The hon. Gentleman said that the regulation
	"Could be good, or could be bad."—[ Official Report, 24 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 414.]
	By equivocating, I assume that he meant that the intention behind the regulation might have been good, but that its implementation had been less than satisfactory.
	The operation of the Data Protection Act is the subject of a further British Chambers of Commerce case study, in which another business man says:
	"The DPA is a worthwhile piece of legislation but the process of registration is both futile for Government and time consuming for business. I do not see how registration assists government other than the revenue they take in initial notification fees and annual renewal fees."
	We have registration processes that are futile, compliance that is time consuming and, most worryingly of all, regulation being used as a revenue-raising tool, rather than a way of preventing abuses. That is the story of red tape. Such things are the hallmarks of the Chancellor's marriage to stealthy taxation and unwieldy bureaucracy, which is paid for by the cost of falling productivity and crumbling competitiveness. The opportunity to chart our relentless decline through the medium of newly independent yet sketchy statistics is not much compensation.
	Disentangling statistics from the Chancellor's coat tails is only the first step in ensuring that, in his words,
	"fiscal decisions are fully transparent and accountable."—[ Official Report, 10 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 1404.]
	Independent statistics make fiscal decisions transparent, but they do not matter a jot to a Government who are not willing to see themselves as accountable.
	Several years ago, the Chancellor called the private finance initiative
	"a cynical distortion of public finance".
	However, in the past 18 months or so, his own cynical PFI distortions have been unravelled by the ONS: £1.25 billion was added in August 2005; £5 billion was added in February 2006; and £4.95 billion was added in September 2006. Will the newly independent successor to the ONS continue to add piecemeal to the Government's balance sheet—a billion here, a billion there—or will there be a clean sweep for statistics and the Child Support Agency following this year's Gracious Speech?
	The Chancellor's £5 billion annual raid on pensions has cost pensioners £100 billion. How will the independent board force the Government to confront the looming crisis of their own creation? The Government's spending on consultants reached £2.4 billion by 2005, over £2 billion more than when Labour came into government. How will the new board force the Chancellor to admit that results must follow investment?
	How will the independent studies reduce the burdens placed on the most vulnerable in our society? The public sector is expanding and unelected quangos are blossoming while families and businesses alike are simply withering under the tax burden. What teeth will the new board have to deal with those problems? That is what we know without the benefit of truly independent statistics.

Philip Hammond: We come to the end of the final day of debate on what will be the Prime Minister's final legislative programme. I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in his place; I am sorry that he could not join us for more of the debate. There is a certain poignancy in his winding up this debate, because he is probably the most ultra-Blairite member of the Cabinet. Depending on which way one looks at it, he is either the most honest in expressing his view or the least nimble at repositioning himself for life under the clunking fist regime coming soon.
	The good news for the Secretary of State is that I have calculated that if he can hang on to his job for another 22 days, until the House rises, he will have surpassed the career average of his four immediate predecessors. The bad news is that no one is betting on his luck lasting much beyond that. Things have come to something when Conservative Members are wary of quoting a Cabinet Minister's description of the Chancellor for fear of being rebuked for the use of unparliamentary language.
	We have had what can be described as a wide-ranging and extensive debate this evening, the highlight of which was the first outing of the big clunking fist since its baptism by the Prime Minister the week before last. It clattered in like a medieval war engine, and my impression was more of clunking than of fist. It looked like a bit of a primitive weapon against the rapier that my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) plunged into the Chancellor's record.
	The Prime Minister has been promising welfare reform since 1997. The Bill that has carried over into this Session is the first sign of any serious attempt to deliver on that promise, so I will not be complaining, as some of my colleagues have had cause to do from this Bench over the last few days, of a sense of déjà vu surrounding the measure—quite the opposite.
	I cannot say the same about the child support Bill. We do not yet know the detail of the Government's proposals, but we do know that they amount to an admission of failure of the 2003 reforms, in which the Government have squandered £500,000 of taxpayers' money on a failed computer system. There are now 1.4 million families trapped in the misery of the Child Support Agency, and every Member of the House knows exactly what that means from their constituency experiences. If the Secretary of State is looking for cross-party support on CSA reform, his proposals will have to address the plight of those already in the system as well as new claimants, because we will not support any solution that denies a just and fair outcome to those 1.4 million families.
	We have supported and will continue to support the Government's objectives in the Welfare Reform Bill. I hope that the Secretary of State, when he winds up the debate, will acknowledge the constructive contribution from my hon. Friends in the Committee proceedings on that Bill, which are ongoing. Similarly, we welcome the key changes to the state pension system which we expect to be introduced in the pensions Bill when it is published—tomorrow, I believe. We welcome the re-establishment of the earnings link, a policy on which we fought the last election, and the changes to the contribution rules and caring credits, which will address the unfairness suffered by women pensioners in the present system. All of that will be paid for by asking people to work until they are 68.
	Both those measures—and, indeed, the reform of the child support system—have the potential to contribute significantly to the anti-poverty agenda, but both require the creation of significant numbers of net new jobs, because both aim to achieve their objectives through a focus on work. That is the right focus for the British economy and for a sustainable and permanent reduction in poverty. An effective attack on poverty requires an attack on the causes of poverty and, for those who can work, work is the sustainable route out of poverty.
	However, as my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor pointed out this afternoon, the backdrop to such work-focused policy initiatives does not look terribly encouraging. Unemployment is at a seven-year record and rising. Long-term youth unemployment, which according to the Prime Minister as recently as September has been eradicated on the planet he inhabits, stands at 175,000 in the world where the rest of us live. Productivity growth has halved, and Britain is sliding down the international competitiveness league tables. All that makes the targets on reduction in claimant numbers, on increase in work force participation and on delayed retirement much more difficult for the Secretary of State to achieve. I am sure that that thought gives the Chancellor many sleepless nights.
	We will not support the abandonment of the 2.7 million people currently on incapacity benefit. The shocking truth is that the Secretary of State plans to reduce the number of claimants almost entirely by stemming the flow of new claimants. Almost none of the intended reduction will be achieved by people coming off long-term benefits and going back into work.
	The Secretary of State says he has not got the money for a more extensive roll-out of the pathways to work programme. We appreciate the need for fiscal discipline, but there is a way to roll out pathways for the benefit of existing claimants without risk or cost to the Treasury by inviting the private and voluntary sector providers, who are negotiating for contracts under the Secretary of State's programme, to take on existing claimants at their own risk. No result, no payment. The providers say they could do it; 1 million existing claimants say that they want it. It is a win-win option for claimants, for taxpayers and for the economy, so why is the Secretary of State not pursuing it, rather than turning his back on existing claimants?
	The Government's central poverty focus has been children, and rightly so. Tackling child poverty is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty, which from generation to generation becomes entrenched, not just as material poverty but as a poverty of hope and aspiration. However, figures published by our social justice policy group last week showed just how shallow the Government's achievements are. Their targets are focused on households that have less than 60 per cent. of median earnings, so the Government's efforts have been equally focused on moving those just below that line to just above it.

Edward Balls: You doubled it.

Philip Hammond: At the same time, the number of people living in deep poverty, below 40 per cent. of median earnings, has shot up—

Edward Balls: You doubled it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should be quiet.

Philip Hammond: The number of people living in deep poverty, below 40 per cent. of median earnings, has shot up by 400,000 between 1996-97 and 2004-05, the latest year for which figures are available. If the Economic Secretary thinks that those figures are not right, I would be happy to hear from him. The percentage of children in persistent poverty is unchanged over the same period. That reminds us, if a reminder were needed, that good intentions do not translate automatically into good outcomes.
	Poverty exists, of course, right across the age spectrum. New Labour boasts of the success of pension credit, and clearly it has lifted several hundred thousand poor pensioners out of relative poverty—[Hon. Members: "Ah!"] We accept that. That is why we support the new architecture for the state pension system, which includes pension credit. However, the weakness of mass means-testing as a strategy is also underlined. Some 1.5 million pensioners, half of them living in poverty, fail to claim because the forms are too complex, because the process is too intrusive and because they are too proud.
	The pensions Bill and the White Paper mentioned in the Gracious Speech will not solve that problem and will not address the immediate crisis facing Britain's occupational pension funds. Duck and weave as the Chancellor might, he cannot escape responsibility for the crisis, as it was he who imposed a £5 billion a year stealth tax on pension funds, accelerating the collapse of final salary schemes in the private sector and causing a loss of confidence, which has almost halved Britain's savings ratio since he came to office.
	Some 60,000 pension schemes with 1 million members have begun winding up on the Chancellor's watch, and the crisis has cost 125,000 people all or part of their pension as their schemes have failed—we heard an impassioned plea on their behalf from the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). It has also reinforced the pensions apartheid that increasingly exists between the private and public sectors. Public sector unfunded pension liabilities are now estimated at up to £1 trillion. That is the real crisis, about which the Gracious Speech has nothing to say to those who have saved all their lives, who did exactly as Governments told them to do and who have been left with little or nothing.
	With breathtaking arrogance, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State have decided in their wisdom that the ombudsman and the Public Administration Committee are wrong, and that the Government will sit in judgment on themselves. This is not about a couple of leaflets, as they would have us believe, but about a systematic weakening of the security of fund members through reductions in funding levels and the ignoring of actuarial advice, all of which was going on while Government information was reassuring members that their money was safe.
	I am not asking the Secretary of State to write a blank cheque with taxpayers' money. I am asking him to display a little humility and accept the finding of maladministration by the ombudsman, to engage in the discussion with all the stakeholders, to examine unclaimed assets and residual assets in the failed schemes, and to come up with sensible figures for the net cost of support at different levels. In short, I am asking him to show some leadership in resolving the situation. This issue is a terrible blot on this Government's record, and risks undermining all the Secretary of State's attempts to rebuild confidence in the pensions system for the future.
	The modern Conservative party shares many of the Government's aspirations on poverty, pensions and welfare reform. As so often with this Government, it is not the aspiration but the delivery that lets them down. They say that it is the thought that counts, but that is cold comfort to people trapped on incapacity benefit, to people living on a pension which is a fraction of what they were expecting and what they saved for, or to people facing marginal tax and benefit withdrawal rates of 80 to 90 per cent. as they go into part-time work.
	We doubt not Labour's emotional commitment to tackling these problems, but its ability to deliver. We understand that sustainable social justice can be built only on strong economic foundations. With declining productivity, spending out of control, public debt up 8 per cent. in a single year and our once world-class pension system in tatters, it is clear that the clunking fist is losing its grip. For the Prime Minister, such a litany of failure is a serious dent to his legacy, but for his successor, whose only claim to fame is a claim to competent economic management, it is a disaster.
	As my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor said today, when people look back on the Chancellor's 10 years in office, they will remember him as the Chancellor who failed to prepare Britain to compete in the new global economy; the Chancellor who, by his own fundamental yardstick, has fundamentally failed in his ambitions for the British economy; and the Chancellor who spent a decade dreaming of his future, only to find that he had become the past before he got there. When the people of this country finally lay this Government to rest, the epitaph on the headstone will surely read, "New Labour. 1997-2009. RIP. So much promised, so little delivered".

Patrick Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Was it not for very many years a convention of this House that the Members who moved and seconded the Loyal Address were present at least for the winding-up speeches at the end of the Queen's Speech debate? Will you consider, Sir, sending a letter to remind all Members of some of the conventions and courtesies of this House, which seem to be being neglected?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has a point. As he knows, I have sent letters in the past to every hon. Member telling them of the conventions, and I will consider doing so again. I thank him very much.

John Hutton: Let me begin by congratulating all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken from the Back Benches, including, from the Conservative Benches, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Members for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke), for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), and for Braintree (Mr. Newmark)—all of whom, apart from the hon. Member for Ludlow, are members of the No Turning Back group. I have been reading their latest contribution to the debate on public policy, to which I want to refer in a moment. We heard interesting contributions from them all; at least one thing they cannot be accused of is not turning up.
	We have had a good debate, with thoughtful speeches by my hon. Friends the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas), for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin), Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) and for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson). They all raised important issues and I am glad to have their support for the measures that we have outlined in the Queen's Speech.
	We also heard a very good speech from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), whom we welcome back to the House, and from the hon. Members for Angus (Mr. Weir) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson).
	It was particularly good to hear from the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who is still the authentic voice of the Thatcherites on the Tory Benches and is now in charge of the Conservatives' review of economic policy.

Nadine Dorries: Today's debate has been about probity and integrity, and honesty is very important in this Chamber. Will the Minister tell the House whether it was he who said that the Chancellor would make a bleeping awful Prime Minister?

John Hutton: No; I have dealt with that many times before. Look, this is a serious debate—we are here to discuss the Government's legislative programme.
	As I said, the right hon. Member for Wokingham is in charge of the Conservatives' review of economic policy. On the basis of his remarks today, we very much look forward to seeing his recommendations on how the Conservatives are going to reach out to the socially excluded.
	I want to say a few words about the speech by the shadow Chancellor. It was clear to all of us and, I suspect, to everyone else listening to the debate, that his spending plans, of which we have seen several versions knocking about today, are completely out of control, that his tax policy is in chaos, and that he has no economic policy for ensuring growth or stability. In short, his speech was extraordinarily empty of both substance and vision. That is why we all look forward to hearing more from him in future.

John Redwood: How on earth can the Minister say that my hon. Friend lacks substance when he gave a very good speech, whereas the Chancellor told us nothing about the Government's plans or intentions or about this country's economic progress and problems? Why does not he tell his right hon. Friend to give us some substance?

John Hutton: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman feels better for that, but he obviously heard a very different speech from the rest of us.
	I want to pick up on something that the shadow Chancellor said about poverty that was, I am afraid, completely wrong. He said that the number of people living on less than 40 per cent. of median income has grown by 750,000 since this Government took office. That is completely untrue. In fact, there has been no rise at all in the number of people living below 40 per cent. of median income since 1997. He based his claims on figures that began in 1994 rather than in 1997 and was, completely unknown to him, attacking the record of his own party in government. Our measures to tackle deprivation—every one of them opposed by the Conservatives—have helped to take 700,000 children above the internationally recognised definition of poverty since 1997, while the poorest families are now on average £3,400 a year better off.

Philip Hammond: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: No, I will not. [Hon. Members: "Give way!"] I shall give way to the shadow Chancellor if he wants to correct what he said earlier, but I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
	On the subject of reducing poverty and tackling social exclusion, did not the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, the shadow Chancellor and the party that they represent have the opportunity to vote for all the measures that we have proposed and which have made such a positive impact in tackling poverty? Extra investment in the national health service—they opposed it. Extra investment in our schools—they voted against that too.

Michael Gove: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: No, I will not give way.
	The Conservative party voted against the new deal, against tax credits and against the national minimum wage—the list goes on and on.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. Since he said a few moments ago that there had been no increase at all in those living below 40 per cent. of median earning, perhaps I could quote him the precise figures. In 1996-97, 2.4 million people were living below 40 per cent. of median earnings, but in 2004-05, which is the last year for which figures are available, that number was 2.81 million. That is an increase of 410,000—not no increase at all.

John Hutton: That is not right—the hon. Gentleman needs to look at the after-housing-costs figures, which are the proper definition.
	The speech from the Throne reflects a legislative programme that addresses head on the challenges that our country faces. It is built on the foundations of unprecedented economic stability and prosperity, which have been delivered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and enshrines the fundamental objectives of the Government: to tackle poverty, extend opportunity and promote fairness. A strong economy and a fair society are things that the Tories never managed to achieve. In fact, they never delivered either.
	The contrast could not be clearer now. Today we have the longest period of sustained economic growth of any G7 economy in post-war history, with growth in every quarter of every year since 1997.

Michael Gove: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: No, I will not.
	We have the best combination of unemployment and inflation in the G7, instead of one of the worst under the Tories and, for the first time in 50 years, the best combination of high employment, low unemployment and low inactivity rates anywhere in the G7.
	The Queen's Speech provides a serious and heavyweight response to the challenges facing Britain today, whether it be the threat to our security or the impact of economic and demographic change in an increasingly global economy.

Michael Gove: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: No.
	The Queen's Speech carries forward, too, the central purpose of Labour in government, keeping our promises to the people to build a strong Britain, where economic strength and social justice together ensure opportunity for all.
	We have heard a lot of references in this debate to welfare reform. The previous Conservative Government's welfare reform policies were a total failure. The number of children living in poverty doubled. The number of people claiming lone parent or incapacity benefit trebled. Twice in a decade, the number of people unemployed exceeded 3 million.

Michael Gove: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: No.
	Things are different now. The new deal has helped more than 1.7 million people into work. Today there are more people in work than ever before. Employment is up by more than 2.5 million since 1997, and up in every region and country of the United Kingdom, with the biggest increases in the neighbourhoods and cities that started in the worst position. The biggest falls in unemployment have been among those who were on benefits for the longest. Long-term claimant unemployment is down by more than 70 per cent. and long-term youth claimant unemployment has been virtually eradicated.
	We introduced measures in the previous Session, carried over to this one, on welfare reform. Our Welfare Reform Bill will build on the progress that we have made. It will replace incapacity benefit with a new employment support allowance, and offer new support in return for new obligations for people to help themselves. It enshrines the proper balance between rights and responsibilities, and reflects the values of opportunity and security. I hope that it will continue to enjoy cross-party support.
	Several hon. Members have referred to our proposed legislation on child support. Tackling child poverty will be the first priority of the reforms. The Bill will mark a clean break with the past, with new arrangements that work with parents to deliver the best outcomes for their children. The Bill begins the process of realigning policy with reality. Building on the recommendations made by Sir David Henshaw, it will help parents to take responsibility for making their own child maintenance arrangements, backed up with strong and effective support when that does not happen. The Bill will provide for the creation of a new organisation to replace the existing Child Support Agency. It will radically strengthen the available enforcement powers to recover maintenance from those who repeatedly fail to pay, including through the introduction of new powers in relation to curfews and the suspension of passports when necessary.
	The pensions Bill, to which many hon. Members have referred, will meet the challenges of under-saving and demographic change highlighted by last year's Turner report.

Michael Gove: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for at last giving way. He will be aware that the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), has said that poverty has become more entrenched under this Government. Given that he is the Secretary of State's flatmate, if he cannot convince his flatmate, how does he expect to convince the country?

John Hutton: The hon. Gentleman needs to keep himself up to date. My right hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) is not my flatmate— [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I do not therefore want to spend any more time dealing with that trivial point. Both my right hon. Friend and every Labour Member would recognise the contribution that tax credits have made to taking hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.
	The pensions Bill will promote personal responsibility for dignity and security in old age; a simpler and more generous state pension, but one that continues to target resources on those most in need; a modern contributory principle that delivers fairer outcomes, especially for women and carers; a new delivery authority for a new system of personal accounts that will make it easier for more people to save; and yes, a higher state pension age that keeps the proportion of adult life spent receiving the state pension stable for each generation and helps to secure the long-term financial stability and sustainability of our pensions system. The Government will also place the restoration of the link to earnings at the heart of the new legislation.
	Rather surprisingly, the Opposition amendment regrets the absence of measures in the Gracious Speech to deal with pensions. I very much regret that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has put his name to such a motion. After all, he is the same hon. Member who stood at the Dispatch Box on the day we published the White Paper and said:
	"The White Paper has been long awaited and will be widely welcomed."—[ Official Report, 25 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 1653.]
	He is the same hon. Member who described in the House, only a month later,
	"the key elements of the White Paper, all of which we can enthusiastically support"— [ Official Report, 27 June 2006; Vol. 448, c. 149.]
	That cannot be the same hon. Member who put his name to this motion.
	Through the measures in the Queen's Speech, the Government are taking the long-term decisions necessary to provide security and opportunity in a rapidly changing world. I propose that the House support the Government in the Lobby tonight.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 229, Noes 294.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add:
	"but humbly regret that the Gracious Speech fails to announce proposals for a strategy for Iraq providing for a phased withdrawal of United Kingdom armed forces; deplore the further erosion of traditional British freedoms that will result from the Government's proposals on security and terrorism, increasing intrusion into private lives without commensurate improvements in public safety or the repeal of existing and unnecessary laws and regulations; and further regret that the measures proposed to address global warming lack ambition and are not sufficient to establish the United Kingdom as a world leader in combating climate change."— [Mr. Burstow.]
	 Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Calling of amendments at end of debate), That the amendment be made:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 59, Noes 298.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Main Question put:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 295, Noes 221.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
	Most Gracious Sovereign.
	We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
	 To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 25 (Periodic adjournments),
	That this House, at its rising on Tuesday 19th December 2006, do adjourn till Monday 8th January 2007. —[Kevin Brennan.]
	 Question agreed to.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
	That, on Tuesday 19th December,—
	(1) the House shall sit at half past Eleven o'clock and references to specific times in the Standing Orders of this House shall apply as if that day were a Wednesday; and
	(2) there shall be no sitting in Westminster Hall. — [Kevin Brennan.]

COMMITTEES

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With the leave of the House, I will put motions 5, 6 and 7 together.

Foreign Affairs

Ordered,
	That Mr John Maples be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Mr Malcolm Moss be added.

Defence

That Mr Mark Lancaster be discharged from the Defence Committee and Mr Bernard Jenkin be added.

Science and Technology

That Margaret Moran be discharged from the Science and Technology Committee and Mr Graham Stringer be added. ——[Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

PETITIONS

Bingley Post Office

Philip Davies: I am presenting a petition on behalf of the residents of Bingley and the surrounding area to save their local post office. The petition has been signed by 677 local residents. So popular was it that a further 1,601 people signed a makeshift petition, because the official forms ran out so quickly. The Post Office has agreed to a temporary post office for Bingley, which is welcome, but obviously we would all like a permanent post office to support local residents and local businesses.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners are extremely concerned at the closure of the post office in Bingley and believe that this is a pressing public service priority within the Bradford district.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons call upon the Government to recognise the importance of the post office to the local community and to other businesses in Bingley and to ensure that the Post Office honour their promise to maintain a post office in Bingley.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Acute Services (Teesside)

Iain Wright: I present a petition signed by 32,403 people from my constituency and the surrounding area regarding continuing uncertainty about the future viability of our local hospital after Professor Darzi's report had provided a clear and positive way forward. I pay tribute to the people of Hartlepool, who have demonstrated unity, solidarity and focus on this vital issue like no other. They have been supported by the  Hartlepool Mail's save our services campaign and have received the support of the people of Blackhall, Horden and Peterlee in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (John Cummings).
	The petition states:
	To the House of Commons
	The petition of residents of the borough of Hartlepool and others.
	Declares the Petitioners' serious concerns about the Secretary of State for Health's recent decision to refer maternity and paediatric services in Teesside to an independent reconfiguration panel.
	The Petitioners further declare that this decision undermines entirely the review of acute services in Teesside undertaken by Professor Sir Ara Darzi, which provided an excellent means of securing a viable future for the University Hospital of Hartlepool, as well as other hospitals in the area.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to use her powers to implement Professor Darzi's recommendations in full, and without delay.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Rural Post Offices

Oliver Letwin: I wish to present a petition on behalf of more than 2,000 people in my constituency of West Dorset who are worried about the future of their rural post offices, which are under threat due to the ending of the Post Office card account that the Government have threatened.
	The petition states:
	The petitioners ... request that the House of Commons urges the Government to maintain the Post Office Card Account and the rural post office network.
	 To lie upon the Table.

CHRISTIANS IN PAKISTAN

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Roy.]

Gordon Prentice: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the important matter of the future of the Karims, who are constituents of mine in Pendle, and the persecution of Christians in Pakistan.
	Tomorrow, the Pope travels to Turkey, and we all wish him well. We all want an open dialogue between Christianity and Islam. I want people of all faiths and none to rub along together, respecting each other's beliefs and being tolerant of differences. I agreed with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor when he said six months ago in a lecture to the Oxford centre for Islamic studies that Catholic-Muslim dialogue depends on religious freedom—we all agree with that. However, there are many question marks about religious freedom in Pakistan. Indeed, my constituents, the Karims, fled from Pakistan.
	The Karims are asylum seekers, and asylum seekers get a really bad press. Asylum seekers are viewed with suspicion, even more so when they are failed asylum seekers, like the Karims. That is why I want to tell the story of Nigel and Pearl Karim and their two children, Calvin and Crystal. They are threatened with deportation, but I want them to be allowed to stay in the United Kingdom outside the immigration rules, for reasons that I will explain, on compassionate grounds.
	The Karims are an ordinary family with an extraordinary story. They came to the United Kingdom in 2002 and sought asylum. They were turned down in November of that year. They are practising Catholics and fear persecution if they return to Pakistan. They appealed, and all the appeals were exhausted in 2003. Since then, I have been working with them. I had a long discussion with Pearl and Nigel Karim on Friday in my constituency office. Their story is long and complex, but at its heart is the relationship between the majority Muslim community in Pakistan and the Christian and other minority faiths. That provides the context.
	Nigel Karim is now 53. He was born into a mixed-faith family. His father was Muslim and died when Nigel was three. Nigel was brought up in Karachi as a Catholic by his Christian mother, who still lives in Pakistan. Nigel went to church but, by his own admission, he was not a particularly regular churchgoer. All that changed when, in 1987, he joined the YMCA and met Ivan Edwin, who was a committed Christian with a very high profile. Nigel started to worship regularly after that and would help Edwin out, driving him to meetings, posting letters and helping around the office.
	It was through that relationship that Nigel met Edwin's cousin and his own future wife, Pearl, who was also a Christian. They married in 1991, and their son Calvin was born in 1994. The relatives on the father's side, the Muslim side, were very unhappy about that, particularly the cousins, Mohammed Sharif and Mohammed Azim. They periodically made threats to the Karims which grew in intensity once Calvin was old enough to go to school. Indeed, in 2001 they threatened to kidnap the boy. They let it be known that they did not want the children to be brought up as Christians.
	It was at that point that the Karims resolved to get out of Pakistan. It was just as well that they did, because Pearl's cousin, Ivan Edwin, was murdered in May 2002. He was killed in his office. He was found strapped to his chair with a syringe sticking out of his arm that was filled with the tranquiliser Diazepam. His killers were never found. When the Karims were living in Karachi, they moved around, living in four or five different rented properties, fearing to stay in any house for too long. Nigel Karim's mother similarly moved around, fearing that she, too, would be tracked down. I believe that the Karims will be danger if they go back. That is the difference between me and Ministers.
	There are 4 million Christians in Pakistan, but the Government have no central record of the number of people from that country who come here seeking asylum because of religious persecution. There is a huge number of Christians over there. Indeed, in Karachi alone, I am told, there are 120,000 Catholics. Clearly, we cannot have 4 million Pakistani Christians applying for visitor's visas to the United Kingdom and, as soon as they step off the plane at Heathrow, applying for asylum on the grounds of their religious beliefs. I accept that each case must be dealt with case by case, but I believe that the Karims' case is compelling and that new information that they provided relating to their plight was not properly considered by my hon. Friend and her colleagues.
	I have been involved with the Karims since June 2003 and have made a series of representations to Home Office Ministers; I forget how many. The Karims have been told that they have no basis to stay in the UK and they should leave. Most recently, the Karims received two letters on 16 October and 7 November and were told that the latest submissions
	"do not amount to a fresh claim"
	and that they have
	"no further right of appeal".
	They could be deported at any stage.
	These letters are now the subject of an application for judicial review by the Karims' solicitors, who say that Ministers failed properly to consider new evidence, one piece of which concerned threats made to Nigel Karim's Christian mother, to whom I referred. The other related to a poster that has gone up in the area of Karachi where they lived. It shows a photograph of Nigel Karim next to a rather ominous drawing of a gallows and a reward of 500,000 rupees for information on Nigel Karim's whereabouts. He is referred to in this poster as "Nigel the Arrogant."
	Who would feel relaxed about going back to Pakistan in these circumstances? But the Government believe—I am putting words in my hon. Friend's mouth, which I should not do—that Pakistan is like a giant forgery factory; that all sorts of documents are forged and fiddled and we cannot believe anything that anyone brings forward because it could be a forgery. It was up to the authorities to prove that the documentation was a forgery, and they have not done that. That is the basis for the application for judicial review.
	In May this year, the immigration authorities and the police removed Mr. and Mrs. Karim and their children to Yarl's Wood detention centre, pending their removal from the country. It provoked a huge outcry in my constituency, and my office contacted Yarl's Wood. We were all relieved that the case was to be given further consideration, but we are now back to where we started.
	Many people in this country will find it strange that people in some countries overseas are terrified of being a member of a minority faith. Certainly in Pakistan there are probably hundreds of thousands of people terrified to worship their own god in their own way. I asked the Library for information on this and there is a huge amount from Amnesty International and others.
	I was drawn to the International Religious Freedom report that has just been published for 2006. It charts a series of abuses and states that in Pakistan
	"Police torture and mistreatment of those in custody remained a serious and common problem throughout the country and at times resulted in extrajudicial killings."
	Christian communities claim their members are more likely to be abused. For example:
	"The policeman charged in the May 2004 death-in-custody of Samuel Masih, a Christian, remained in detention pending trial."
	Masih had been charged under the blasphemy laws; he died after police torture. The operation of the blasphemy laws continues to be a cause of great concern. We are told that they are routinely used to harass religious minorities and liberal Muslims and to settle personal scores or business rivalries. The punishment for blasphemy is death, which is chilling. For example: in April this year, an appellate court acquitted Christian school teacher Pervez Masih of blasphemy charges and released him after five years in detention.
	In April this year, two prison staff at the central prison in Sahiwal, Punjab joined Muslim inmates in attacking four Christian prisoners who had gathered for prayer and bible study. The prison staff stripped the Christians of their clothing and physically tortured them. The four were locked up in solitary confinement, and no action was taken against the prison officials.
	On the evening and night of 12 November last year, a mob of 2,500 people, urged on by local clergy, attacked and destroyed Christian churches, religious properties and houses in the town of Sangla Hill. According to witnesses, the police took no action to control or disperse the mob or to protect Christian property. And so it goes on.

David Burrowes: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate and on his hard work on behalf of the Karim family—I wish him well in his future representations. Turning to the issue of Sangla Hill, the National Commission for Justice and Peace organised a national consultation meeting on ending religious intolerance on 4 November. The joint resolution arising from the consultation described the violence in Sangla Hill as
	"merely one manifestation of the alarming level of religious intolerance prevailing in the country, being fuelled by hate speech and discriminatory laws."

Gordon Prentice: Of course I agree with that. The example is, perhaps, extreme, but it is symptomatic of what can happen in a country when religious intolerance is given free rein.
	Last month, I asked the Foreign Office what representations the Government were making to Pakistan concerning the position of Christians. The Minister of State told me that he had raised the issue with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, in March, asking him to take action to protect religious minorities. Only last month, I had the opportunity to have a word here at Westminster with the Pakistan Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Senator Tariq Aziz Khan, when I specifically mentioned the case of the Karims.
	The Karims are well-educated people, and they put a thousand times more into the community than they take out. One of the many letters to me describes the two children as polite, extremely well behaved and always eager to learn. Both children are in the top streams for all subjects at their school.
	The Karims have told their story to the local press in Pendle; they have told it to the BBC "Today" programme; and their story can be accessed on the web. I have received literally hundreds of e-mails from the classmates of Crystal and Calvin. A petition signed by between 3,000 and 4,000 people was presented to me at a packed meeting at Christ church, Nelson, on 9 November. I have been contacted by a delegation from the local clergy, which is led by Father Chris Gorman, and by one from Catholic schools, which is led by Brendan Conboy, headteacher of Fisher More Catholic high school. The school chaplain has also been in touch with me.
	I have a file on the Karims that is inches thick. I have a motion from my local authority, Pendle borough council, supporting the Karims, and it notes the widespread support across the area.
	I have received letters of support from respected local journalists such as Sue Ritchie from the  Nelson Leader, who tells me that the family have worked so hard to integrate into the local community that they are a real asset and that they should stay.
	I have received letters from Ann Kerrigan, a local Liberal Democrat councillor who is fighting the family's corner, from community campaigners Sue and David Penney, from Sheila Samuels and from others too numerous to mention.
	I have received a letter from the Rev. Richard Adams, who says:
	"Christians of any church face threats to safety and life in Pakistan. False charges of blasphemy against Islam are common and the police offer no protection."

David Drew: Like several other hon. Members, I have followed some of these cases in the courts in Pakistan. The case that my hon. Friend is making is absolutely justified. People who end up in court can often expect not only to get no justice but to get the worst kind of treatment outside, where there may be mob rule. I would not send anyone back to that. I hope that he takes that on board in the case that he is pursuing.

Gordon Prentice: I am grateful to my friend, who speaks for many thousands of people who see the injustice of sending the Karims back to Pakistan.
	In his letter, the Rev. Richard Adams concludes that in many cases
	"the police offer no protection. In some instances they have been proven to side with the accusers."
	I also have a letter from the Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Rev. Nicholas Reade, who says that the Karims are
	"keen to contribute to the life and economy of our nation".
	I very much hope that the Minister will listen to the chorus of voices—this is the last chance, I suppose—and let my constituents, the Karims, stay in the United Kingdom.

Joan Ryan: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on securing the debate. As he knows, other Home Office Ministers and I have taken the time to respond in some detail on this case on numerous occasions over the past three years. As a matter of principle, it would not be right for me to discuss on the Floor of the House, or in any other public forum, the precise circumstances of this family's case, because their legal representatives have lodged an application for permission to appeal for their case to be considered before the High Court under judicial review. That application remains outstanding. However, I am happy to discuss in more general terms the asylum and appeals determination process in relation to the family's case.
	As my hon. Friend is aware, asylum and human rights applications are considered by the Home Office on their individual merits in accordance with our obligations under the 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees and the 1950 European convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms. Each application is considered against the background of the latest available information about the situation in the country of origin. Full account is taken of the ability of the individual concerned to reside safely in other parts of their country when it is not safe to return to their home area. I assure my hon. Friend that full account was indeed taken in the Karim family's case.
	Where an application is unsuccessful, individuals are able to appeal to the asylum and immigration tribunal. If the appeal is unsuccessful, an applicant may seek permission for the decision of the immigration judge to be reviewed. The Karim family have been through the appeal process, and their case was considered at length by the adjudicator. However, the appeal was dismissed in a very detailed and carefully reasoned determination that was by no means unsympathetic. The adjudicator also had the benefit of hearing oral evidence from Mr. and Mrs. Karim. After the appeal was unsuccessful, the family submitted extensive grounds when seeking permission to appeal to the tribunal. The tribunal carefully considered those grounds but decided that they did not undermine the conclusions of the adjudicator, and permission to appeal was refused. The asylum and immigration tribunal is an independent body established by Parliament to adjudicate on such matters, and except in the most compelling circumstances Ministers would not normally intervene where an appeal has been dismissed by the tribunal.
	Although I have said that I will not enter into detailed discussion with regard to the individual circumstances of this case on the Floor of the House, I consider it important to point out that since the family exhausted all avenues of appeal the case has been reviewed on numerous occasions by the immigration and nationality directorate and by various Home Office Ministers as a result of written representations from my hon. Friend, from the family's legal representatives and from the Bishops of Lancaster and Blackburn.
	I recognise that the family have contributed to the local community, which is of course to be commended, and that as a result they have the strong support of that community, as evidenced by the campaign on their behalf. However, that alone does not give them a basis to remain in the United Kingdom.
	The United Kingdom has a long tradition of providing refuge to those in genuine need of surrogate international protection of the 1951 refugee convention, but it is only right and proper that those who are not found to be genuinely in need of such protection should return home, regardless of the degree to which they have integrated themselves into this country's society during their temporary residence here.
	In relation to other points raised by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes), it is accepted that, in some areas of Pakistan, the situation for Christians is still contentious and that, as a minority group, they might suffer some discrimination. Discrimination in employment is particularly common, and Christian parents have had difficulty gaining admission to Government schools for their children. Christians also find themselves disproportionately over-represented in Pakistan's most oppressed social group—bonded labourers. The Pakistani authorities have shown that they are willing and able to provide protection for minority religious groups against harassment, violence and intimidation. The religious constitution guarantees the rights of religious minorities, and the President has called for religious tolerance.
	My hon. Friend made a further intervention on behalf of the Karim family when they were detained on 10 May in advance of their removal, which was planned for 13 May 2006. As he is aware, the removal was deferred following his representations, and the family were subsequently released from detention while further consideration was given to their case. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that the Karim family were recorded as absconders earlier this month, having failed to comply with the residence restrictions that pertained to their being granted temporary release. On 16 November, their solicitors lodged an application for permission to apply for a judicial review with the High Court, and it was only on that date, when the application was lodged, that the family presented themselves to the authorities.

Gordon Prentice: The Minister has told the House that the Karims were temporary absconders. I must tell her that at no stage did they ever seek to evade the authorities or to go to ground. They were absolutely determined to carry on with their normal day-to-day lives.

Joan Ryan: I assure my hon. Friend that the information that I give him is correct. It is the case that the Karim family were recorded as absconders earlier this month. I am happy to discuss that with him following the debate.
	While the application is still outstanding, no action will be taken to remove the family from the United Kingdom. I ask my hon. Friend to advise the family that it would be in their best interests to comply with the conditions attached to their temporary release and to report any change of address immediately. I know that he appreciates that while the application remains outstanding, it would be inappropriate to discuss the case in any but the broader terms in which I have done today, and that it would not be appropriate to intervene while the case is before the court. Should the court decide that the removal of the family is lawful and proportionate, I hope that he will accept that returning them to Pakistan is the correct, fair and just course of action.
	Although I have only discussed the family's case in broader terms, I hope that that has been of use to my hon. Friend. I understand that he wrote on 10 November to my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality about the family's case, and that a detailed written response will be sent to him shortly.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.